The Samsung Electronics sign at the company’s Seocho office in southern Seoul on Oct. 8, left, and the SK hynix logo at the company's headquarters in Icheon, Gyeonggi, on Sept. 16. Foreign ownership of both chipmakers has fallen below 50 percent.YONHAP, NEWS1
Foreign investors’ stake in Samsung Electronics has sunk to a level last seen in 2009, in the wake of the global financial crisis, and the selling has not let up even as the chipmaker projects a record quarterly profit.
Foreigners held 46.38 percent of Samsung Electronics shares as of Thursday, according to the Korea Exchange. The share had dipped to 46.37 percent on Wednesday, the lowest since July 16, 2009, when it stood at 46.35 percent.
SK hynix, the other half of Korea’s chip duo, has also seen its foreign ownership slip below 50 percent.
Foreign ownership of Samsung Electronics fell below 50 percent in March amid geopolitical shocks, including the armed conflict between the United States and Iran. It recovered briefly in April but resumed its slide in May as the Kospi swung sharply up and down, falling below 48 percent in June and below 47 percent on July 1.
The selling continued even after Samsung Electronics said Thursday that it expects a record operating profit of about 107.4 trillion won ($80.1 billion) for the third quarter.
Foreign ownership of SK hynix stood at 49.59 percent as of Thursday, down about 5 percentage points from this year’s peak of 54.64 percent on Feb. 25. The share held above 50 percent throughout 2024 and 2025. This year, it briefly dipped below that line in mid-July and has stayed under it since Sept. 29.
Samsung Electronics' headquarters in Suwon, Gyeonggi, on May 26.YONHAP
The retreat from the two chipmakers pulled foreign ownership of the Kospi’s electrical and electronics sector down to 38.09 percent from 40.87 percent at the start of the year. Foreign selling of chip heavyweights is also weighing on the broader Korean stock market.
Foreigners have net sold more than 197 trillion won of shares on the Kospi alone this year, an unprecedented pullout. They were net buyers of more than 11 trillion won of Kospi shares in 2023 and net sellers of more than 4 trillion won last year.
Brokerage analysts argue that the market has entered a phase in which strong earnings alone are unlikely to turn foreign flows around.
“This has reconfirmed that we are in an environment where good earnings alone cannot be expected to reverse foreign flows,” Lee Jae-won, an analyst at Yuanta Securities, said. “Political and geopolitical events do not in themselves lead directly to foreigners coming back, either.”
Lee went on to advise a gradual approach.
“Any further increase in weighting should be tied to changes in foreign flows,” Lee said. “A strategy of buying in installments as the selling pressure eases would be effective.”
This article was originally written in Korean and translated by a bilingual reporter with the help of generative AI tools. It was then edited by a native English-speaking editor. All AI-assisted translations are reviewed and refined by our newsroom.
