Shares of Samsung Electronics fell more than 5 per cent in early trade on Monday, after the South Korean chipmaker said last week its shareholder returns this year could reach up to 110 trillion won (USD 79.38 billion). Until midnight the stock was down 5.2 per cent, while rival chipmaker SK Hynix was actually up 2.4per cent, and the broader KOSPI index slipped 0.7 per cent. It is interesting to note that one chip giant announces a record buyback and its shares tumble, while its closest competitor climbs on the same day.
What actually happened?
Samsung’s board signed off on a plan to return between 90 trillion and 110 trillion won roughly USD 65 to USD 80 billion to shareholders this year alone. To put that in perspective, it’s about five times the company’s previous record of 20.3 trillion won, set back in 2020, and it’s the largest such payout ever announced by a Korean company. A big chunk of that, around 30 trillion won, will go out as cash dividends in the third quarter, with the rest including the buyback split to be finalised at an October board meeting.
Why investors weren’t impressed
Here’s the twist: the market had actually priced in something even bigger. Investors had reportedly been hoping for returns closer to 150 trillion won, and with the buyback breakdown still undecided, the announcement left some feeling like the party was smaller than promised. Shares had actually spiked to an intraday high of 285,000 won right after the news broke before giving up every bit of that gain in after-hours trading and closing at 270,000 won below where they’d started the previous session.
The bigger picture
None of this happened in a vacuum. Samsung’s announcement capped a remarkable week for Korea’s chipmakers, coming just days after SK Hynix unveiled its own 40 trillion won buyback and cancellation plan itself the largest repurchase in Korean corporate history at the time. Both companies are sitting on a mountain of cash thanks to the AI-driven memory chip boom, and both are now under real pressure to prove that boom translates into something shareholders can actually feel.
For Samsung, Monday’s slide is a reminder that in markets flush with record profits, “biggest ever” doesn’t always mean “big enough” especially when investors had already quietly convinced themselves to expect more.
Prabhat Shukla is Senior Copy Editor at ET Now with over 2.5 years of experience in reporting and strategic storytelling. He is a graduate in Economics (Honours) from Lucknow University and holds a Post-Graduate Diploma in English Journalism from the Indian Institute of Mass Communication (IIMC). He currently covers the technology and automobile beats, closely tracking developments across consumer tech, mobility, and innovation.
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