400,000 minors own Samsung Electronics shares worth W1.54tr

A Samsung logo is seen at Samsung Electronics' Seocho office in southern Seoul. (Newsis)

The number of underage stakeholders in Samsung Electronics, the country's largest company by market capitalization, has surged nearly 21 times in four years, reaching almost 400,000.

According to the Korea Securities Depository's securities data portal, as of the end of last year, there were 391,869 Samsung Electronics shareholders under the age of 20, making up 8.38 percent of the total 4,672,130 shareholders.

The total value of Samsung Electronics shares owned by these underage investors amounted to 1.54 trillion won ($1.12 billion), representing 0.3 percent of the company's 468.62 trillion won market capitalization as of the end of 2023.

On average, each minor held 46 Samsung Electronics shares, equating to 3.61 million won per person.

The number of underage Samsung Electronics shareholders has been steadily increasing.

The first significant surge occurred after Samsung Electronics' stock split in May 2018, which caused the number of underage shareholders to jump from 2,638 at the end of 2010 to 18,301 in 2019, with their proportion of the total rising from 1.83 percent to 3.21 percent during the same period.

The trend continued to accelerate from 2020, with the influx of new retail investors into the market due to the COVID-19 pandemic. In 2020, the number of under-20 shareholders rose to 115,083, then to 358,257 in 2021, and 431,642 in 2022. Their proportion of the total also surged, reaching 5.3 percent in 2020, 7.07 percent in 2021, and 7.42 percent in 2022.

Compared to the end of 2019, the number of underage shareholders increased by 21.4 times over four years, while their proportion rose by 2.6 times.

At the end of 2023, the age group with the highest proportion of Samsung Electronics shareholders was those in their 40s at 22.04 percent, followed by those in their 30s at 21.1 percent and 50s at 20.8 percent. In terms of the number of shares, those in their 50s held the most at 419.5 million, followed by those in their 60s with 190.2 million and those in their 70s with 178 million.

By Choi Ji-won(jwc@heraldcorp.com)