Samsung Electronics will return between KRW 90T and KRW 110T, or about $65B to $80B, to shareholders in 2026, the company said on Friday. The pledge caps a blockbuster week for Korean chip payouts that began with SK hynix’s record share buyback.
Samsung plans to distribute about KRW 30T in cash dividends in the third quarter, and its board separately approved a KRW 15T share buyback. Final figures for the rest of the year will be set at board meetings in late October and January.
The payout rests on the economics of high-bandwidth memory. A single HBM4 stack consumes the fab capacity of three to four conventional DRAM wafers, removing commodity DRAM from the market while commanding premium prices. Samsung’s chip division posted record quarterly results as AI demand pushed server memory prices higher.
SK hynix announced a KRW 40T buyback and cancellation on August 19, the largest ever by a Korean listed company. Samsung’s stock is up about 135% this year, and analysts project DRAM supply to stay tight into 2028.
The January decision is effectively a bet on the second half. If AI memory demand holds, Samsung’s board can fund the top of the range; if it fades, the payout shrinks. Either way, the AI chip supercycle has handed Korea’s biggest company profits large enough to make history with them.
