U.S. Dividend Payments Hit A Record $164.3 Billion

Dividend payments from publicly traded American companies hit a record $164.3 billion U.S. in this year’s first quarter, up 7% from a year ago.

The Janus Henderson Global Dividend Index, which released the Q1 data on dividend payments, said that a growing number of U.S. companies are returning excess cash to shareholders.

Blue-chip companies such as Microsoft (MSFT), Apple (AAPL), JPMorgan Chase (JPM), Chevron (CVX), and Costco Wholesale (COST) each raised their dividend payments in recent months.

In Costco’s case, it started 2024 by issuing a special one-time cash dividend of $15 U.S. per share. That was in addition to the company’s regular distribution to shareholders.

Additionally, some companies, such as Walt Disney Co. (DIS), reinstated their dividend payments after suspending them in 2020 at the outset of the Covid-19 pandemic.

Disney paid a dividend of $0.30 U.S. per share to its stockholders this past January.

And still other company’s such as Meta Platforms (META) and telecommunications firm T-Mobile (TMUS) announced their first-ever dividend payouts.

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In March, Meta paid its first dividend ever, returning a total of $1.3 billion U.S. to shareholders.

Since the end of Q1, other U.S. companies have declared their first ever dividend, notably Google parent company Alphabet (GOOG/GOOGL). Its first dividend will be paid in June.

Beyond America, global dividends rose 2.4% to hit a record of $339.2 billion U.S. in the first quarter.

European pharma giants Novartis (NOVN) and Roche (ROG) ranked as the largest dividend payers globally, with payouts of $8.6 billion U.S. and $7.6 billion U.S., respectively.

Janus Henderson said that it expects global dividend payments to rise 5% by year’s end and reach a record of $1.72 trillion U.S. for all of 2024.