Buoyed by explosive demand for artificial intelligence (AI), the domestic memory industry has entered a supercycle, and the semiconductor ‘top two’, Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix, booked record profits while also sharply increasing shareholder dividends. Samsung Electronics raised them by 15% from a year earlier, while SK Hynix doubled them.

Samsung Electronics disclosed on the 29th that its operating profit last year was tentatively tallied at 43.6011 trillion won, up 33.2% from the previous year. Revenue came in at 333.6059 trillion won, up 10.9% year-on-year, an all-time high.

Samsung Electronics also announced the same day that it will pay a special dividend for the settlement of fourth-quarter 2025 results totaling 1.3 trillion won. Until now, it has paid cash dividends totaling 9.8 trillion won annually, or about 2.45 trillion won per quarter; adding this special dividend brings last year’s total distributions to 11.1 trillion won.

Accordingly, the dividend per share increases 15.3%, from 1,446 won in 2024 to 1,668 won in 2025. This is Samsung Electronics’ first special dividend in five years since the fourth quarter of 2020.

The company explained, “We expanded shareholder returns beyond the dividend scale previously promised,” and added, “This decision is intended to respond to the government’s policies to enhance shareholder value, such as the introduction of separate taxation of dividend income.”

This aligns with the ‘separate taxation of dividend income’ system that takes effect this year. Under the system, a separate tax rate (maximum 30%) lower than the general comprehensive income tax rate (maximum 45%) is applied to corporate dividend income.

With this special dividend, Samsung Electronics recorded a payout ratio of 25.1%, thereby meeting the high-dividend listed-company criteria of ‘payout ratio of at least 25% and a year-on-year dividend increase of at least 10%.’

SK Hynix also said the previous day that it achieved 97.1467 trillion won in revenue in 2025. Operating profit was 47.2063 trillion won. The operating margin was a record 58%.

SK Hynix also increased its dividend. First, it will pay an additional 1 trillion won. Its regular quarterly dividend is 375 won, but for the fourth-quarter settlement dividend it will add 1,500 won, returning 1,875 won per share. As a result, the total annual dividend for 2025 will be 3,000 won per share, double the 1,500 won in 2024. The company said, “This means returning a total of 2.1 trillion won to shareholders for the year.”

It also announced a plan to enhance shareholder value by canceling all of its treasury shares, 15.3 million shares equivalent to a 2.1% stake (about 12.2 trillion won).

However, SK Hynix’s payout ratio was only 8.1% last year, still in the single digits. Manufacturing sectors, including semiconductors, are traditionally seen as low-payout industries because much of their earnings is reinvested in facilities and R&D. Samsung, with its high payout ratio, is something of an exception.

According to the National Assembly Budget Office, only 218 out of a total of 1,505 listed manufacturing companies last year (14.5%) met the criteria for high-dividend companies. This is lower than in non-manufacturing (20.6%) and in finance and insurance (44.4%).