Samsung Electronics said Friday it will return between 90 trillion and 110 trillion won to shareholders in 2026, a range that translates to roughly $65 billion to $80 billion and would mark the largest such program by any South Korean company. The announcement arrives less than a week after domestic rival SK Hynix unveiled a 40 trillion won buyback, turning a routine capital-return cycle into a very public bidding war for investor patience while both firms chase the high-bandwidth memory demand that has lifted Samsung shares about 135 percent this year.
The numbers and the baseline
The 2026 target builds on a three-year policy Samsung set in 2024 to hand back 50 percent of free cash flow generated through 2026 while keeping the regular annual dividend at 9.8 trillion won. Under that framework the company has already paid 20.9 trillion won in cash dividends across 2024 and 2025 and spent 8.4 trillion won repurchasing shares for cancellation. The new ceiling simply extends the math: if free cash flow holds, the payout ratio stays intact and the absolute figure balloons.
The near-term calendar
About 30 trillion won of the 2026 total is earmarked for a third-quarter cash dividend that includes the regular quarterly payment. The board will lock in the exact split at a late-October meeting. The remainder, whether delivered as additional dividends, buybacks, or cancellations, will not be sized until a second board meeting in late January 2027, giving management a full view of the year’s cash generation before committing the balance.
What the rivalry obscures
SK Hynix’s 40 trillion won buyback and Samsung’s 90-to-110 trillion won envelope are both presented as confidence signals, yet neither company has tied the returns to a specific earnings milestone or capacity target in the high-bandwidth memory race. The programs are discretionary, not formulaic, and the January 2027 decision date for Samsung’s residual payout means the final number can shrink if the AI memory cycle turns. Investors are being asked to treat a ceiling as a promise.