Samsung Electronics puts the shareholder return still to come under its three year policy at 90 trillion to 110 trillion won, against 29.3 trillion paid in the first two years
Ninety trillion won is the bottom of the range.
Samsung Electronics made a fair disclosure filing on 21 August putting the shareholder return still available under its 2024 to 2026 policy at about 90 trillion to 110 trillion won. That policy, announced on 31 January 2024 and recited at the head of the new filing, commits half of the free cash flow generated across the three years to shareholders, with a regular dividend of 9.8 trillion won a year sitting inside the half. In the first two years the company says it returned 29.3 trillion won, made up of 20.9 trillion in cash dividends and 8.4 trillion in treasury share purchases and cancellations.
The residual is what is left once that 29.3 trillion comes out of the half share. Run it the other way and the filing is telling investors that half of the three year free cash flow will land somewhere between 119.3 trillion and 139.3 trillion won, which implies a three year total between roughly 238.6 trillion and 278.6 trillion. That is arithmetic on the filing's own two numbers rather than a figure it states anywhere.
The quarter that is already scheduled
For the third quarter of 2026 the company plans a cash dividend of around 30 trillion won, the regular quarterly dividend included. It is not fixed. The board meeting at the end of October 2026 is where the detail gets settled, and the filing says so in terms.
The scale is easier to read against the policy it sits under. A regular dividend of 9.8 trillion won covers a full year. One quarter at 30 trillion is about three times that, and it is more than the 20.9 trillion won of cash dividends the company reports paying across the whole of 2024 and 2025 together.
Whatever remains after the third quarter goes to a board meeting scheduled for the end of January 2027, once the 2026 accounts are closed. The filing says the remainder will be decided across cash dividends and treasury share purchase and cancellation taken together, and announced separately. It does not say in what proportion.
The footnote that sets the base
One line does more work than its length suggests. In calculating three year total free cash flow, the company deducts advance receipts under long term supply agreements on memory products, which it characterises as being in the nature of security deposits, and it deducts spending on share based compensation for officers and employees.
So money taken in advance from customers locking in memory supply does not lift the pool the 50 percent is measured against. Neither does what the company pays out in stock to its own staff. For anybody modelling the return from reported cash flow, those two deductions sit between the cash flow statement and the number in this filing.
What the company has and has not committed to
The filing marks its own 2026 figures as forecast information. It says they are built on current financial estimates, the business environment and the business plan, and that the actual scale may differ materially from the forecast with changes in the macroeconomic environment at home and abroad, actual operating results, investment execution and cash flow.
Two things are therefore worth separating. The 2024 policy and the 29.3 trillion won already paid under it are record. The 90 to 110 trillion won is a company estimate of a residual, with the decisions reserved to a board meeting in October and another in January.
