Samsung Electronics (005930.KS) has bought back all of the shares it had pledged to repurchase, a program worth about 14 trillion won ($10 billion).
The company had purchased 53.8 million of its own shares as of the previous day, according to the Korea Exchange on the 2nd. Samsung Electronics had earlier disclosed plans to buy 53,285,968 shares between Aug. 24 and Nov. 21, meaning it completed the target ahead of schedule. Its cumulative buyback rate stands at 100.96%, with purchases over the period totaling 14.1565 trillion won.
Samsung Electronics applied to buy another 2 million shares on the same day. The company is understood to plan to continue repurchases until cumulative spending reaches 15 trillion won, a scale that would allow for roughly 3 million additional shares.
SK hynix (000660.KS) has bought 18.35 million of its own shares since Aug. 20. That represents 76.24% of the 24.07 million shares it had filed to purchase, with cumulative spending of 32.0514 trillion won. SK hynix has been buying 600,000 to 650,000 shares a day, which suggests the remaining 5.72 million shares would take eight to nine trading sessions. SK hynix had also initially set Nov. 19 as its completion date, meaning the schedule is being moved up by about a month.
With both companies filling their buyback quotas faster than expected, some in the market worry about a supply-demand vacuum in the country's two largest stocks by market capitalization. Analysts said the buybacks by Samsung Electronics and SK hynix had helped ease downward pressure on the index even amid an unfavorable macro environment, including recent increases in interest rates.
Brokerages cautiously raised the possibility that investor sentiment toward the semiconductor sector could recover, starting with Samsung Electronics' preliminary third-quarter earnings release scheduled for next week, drawing foreign investors back to the domestic market.
"The tug-of-war between macro factors — oil prices, interest rates and monetary policy — and micro factors such as AI, semiconductor conditions and earnings continues, but we are entering a phase where the strength and influence of the micro side is gradually growing," said Lee Kyoung-min, an analyst at Daishin Securities. "There is a high likelihood that Samsung Electronics' earnings guidance will meet or exceed lowered expectations, and if upward revisions to profit forecasts resume afterward, we expect the KOSPI to break through and hold above the 7,000 level along with a recovery in semiconductor leadership."
