Samsung Electronics announced it will distribute between 90 trillion won and 110 trillion won ($65.1 billion to $79.5 billion) to shareholders in 2026, marking the largest single-year return in South Korean corporate history.
The announcement signals aggressive confidence in Samsung's high-bandwidth memory business. HBM chips are critical to training large language models, and demand from AI data center operators has sustained prices well above historical DRAM levels. Samsung's stock has risen 135 percent year-to-date, reflecting investor bets that the company can narrow its gap with rival SK Hynix, which recently committed to a separate 40 trillion won buyback.
Samsung will distribute 30 trillion won in cash dividends during the third quarter, with the board finalizing terms by late October. The remaining 60 trillion to 80 trillion won will be allocated at a January 2027 board meeting through some combination of dividends, buybacks, and share cancellations.
The 2026 commitment extends Samsung's three-year program announced in 2024, under which the company pledged to return 50 percent of free cash flow. Through 2025, Samsung has paid 20.9 trillion won in dividends and spent 8.4 trillion won on share repurchases.
The program's sustainability rests on one hard assumption: HBM margins hold. If AI chip supply accelerates or data center spending cools, Samsung would face a painful choice—cut shareholder distributions or sustain returns by reducing R&D and competitive spending. SK Hynix's parallel buyback suggests the sector believes premium HBM pricing will persist, but that conviction carries real downside risk if the supply curve shifts faster than expected.
