U.S. Dividend Payments Rose 8.6% In Second Quarter

Dividend payments from American companies rose 8.6% in this year’s second quarter to $161.50 billion U.S., according to asset manager Janus Henderson Group (JHG).

The distributions were given a boost by first time payouts from technology giants Alphabet (GOOG/GOOGL) and Meta Platforms (META), which each started paying dividends for the first time this year.

Alphabet and Meta accounted for $4 billion U.S. of the dividend payments made by publicly traded U.S. companies in the second quarter.

Outside of the U.S., dividend payments increased 8.2% in Q2 to reach a record $606.10 billion U.S.

Payouts to shareholders by companies such as bank HSBC (HSBC), food company Nestlé (NESN) and telecommunications provider China Mobile were the largest dividend payers overseas.

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Stateside, Microsoft (MSFT) was the largest dividend payer during Q2, distributing $5.60 billion U.S. to its shareholders.

Apple (AAPL) was another notable dividend payer, shelling out $3.80 billion U.S.

Janus Henderson said it expects public companies around the world to pay a record $1.74 trillion U.S. in dividends this year, up 6.4% from 2023 levels.

The stock of Janus Henderson is up 33% over the last 12 months and trading at $36.03 U.S. per share. It pays a quarterly dividend of $0.39 U.S. a share, giving it a yield of 4.33%.