The announcement, made Friday, underscores the growing pressure on South Korea’s leading semiconductor companies to reward investors as the global artificial intelligence boom drives demand for advanced memory chips and reshapes competition within the industry.
Samsung described the planned returns as “the largest ever by a Korean company,” putting the technology giant at the center of an accelerating wave of shareholder payouts among the country’s chipmakers.
The move comes only days after rival SK Hynix announced a 40 trillion won share buyback, highlighting the increasingly aggressive efforts by South Korea’s semiconductor giants to boost shareholder value.
Samsung said it also plans to pay approximately 30 trillion won in cash dividends in the third quarter, including its regular quarterly dividend. The final details of the payout are expected to be determined at a board meeting in late October.
The company said it will determine the size and structure of the remaining shareholder returns at another board meeting scheduled for late January 2027. Those returns could include a combination of cash dividends and share buybacks and cancellations.
The latest announcement comes as Samsung seeks to strengthen its position in the fiercely competitive market for high-bandwidth memory, or HBM, chips. These advanced memory products are increasingly important in artificial intelligence systems, where they help support the massive computing requirements of AI processors.
Samsung has been working to close the gap with SK Hynix in the HBM market as demand for AI infrastructure continues to expand. SK Hynix has emerged as a major supplier of HBM products used alongside advanced AI chips, making the technology a key battleground between the two Korean semiconductor giants.
Investor enthusiasm over the AI-driven semiconductor boom has also pushed SK Hynix shares sharply higher, with the stock gaining about 135% so far this year.
Samsung’s latest payout plan builds on its existing 2024-2026 shareholder-return program. Under that framework, the company committed to returning 50% of the free cash flow it generates between 2024 and 2026, while maintaining annual regular dividends of 9.8 trillion won.
The company said in a corporate value enhancement plan released in March that it paid 20.9 trillion won in cash dividends during 2024 and 2025. It also spent 8.4 trillion won on share repurchases that were subsequently cancelled.
The latest commitment represents a significant escalation in Samsung’s efforts to return capital to investors and comes amid heightened scrutiny of corporate governance and shareholder value in South Korea.
For investors, the combination of dividends, buybacks and cancellations could provide a substantial boost to shareholder returns while also signaling Samsung’s confidence in its financial position and future cash generation.
The scale of the proposed package also reflects the extraordinary importance of semiconductors to Samsung’s business and to South Korea’s broader economy. As AI investment accelerates worldwide, memory-chip manufacturers are seeking to capitalize on surging demand while simultaneously competing to secure leadership in the next generation of AI-related hardware.
Samsung’s decisions on the final size and composition of the payouts will therefore be closely watched by investors, particularly as the company works to regain momentum in HBM and other high-growth semiconductor markets.
The October board meeting is expected to provide greater clarity on the planned third-quarter cash distribution, while the January 2027 meeting will determine the size and structure of the remaining shareholder returns.
Together with SK Hynix’s 40 trillion won buyback, Samsung’s announcement marks an extraordinary week for shareholder distributions among South Korea’s biggest chipmakers — and signals that the AI semiconductor boom is translating into increasingly large rewards for investors.