Samsung Electronics Small Shareholders, 1.4 Million Departed in the Past Year

25% Decrease Compared to Last Year
Samsung Electronics Moving Away from 'National Stock'
Core Cause of Departure Pointed to Stock Price Slump

The number of small shareholders of Samsung Electronics, once called the "people's stock," has decreased by about 1.4 million over the past year. The total number has fallen below the 5 million mark, dropping to the mid-4 million range.

According to Samsung Electronics' semi-annual report on the 14th, as of the end of June this year, the number of small shareholders was counted at 4,247,611. This means that small shareholders hold 67.66% of Samsung Electronics' total issued shares. This figure represents a decrease of about 25% (1,420,708) compared to 5,668,319 in the same period last year.

Small shareholders generally refer to individual investors holding less than 1% of shares. Stocks with more than 1 million small shareholders are called "people's stocks." Samsung Electronics was a stock held by the majority of the population, with nearly 6 million small shareholders in 2021. However, recently, cases of small shareholders selling Samsung Electronics shares have been increasing.

The main cause of the small shareholder exodus is attributed to poor stock performance. This year, Samsung Electronics' stock price fell by 1.66%, underperforming the market average, the KOSPI (-0.41%). In particular, losing out to SK Hynix in the high-bandwidth memory (HBM) market used for manufacturing artificial intelligence (AI) chips has been pointed out as a reason for the stock's poor performance.