Introduction
Dividend strategies are growing in popularity around the world, and Korea is no exception. The assets under management (AUM) of dividend ETFs in the Korean market demonstrated a twentyfold increase over the past 10 years, hitting a record high of KRW 6.7 trillion (USD 4.7 billion) by the end of 2024 (see Exhibit 1). Keeping up with market trends, S&P DJI launched the Dow Jones Korea Dividend 30 Index in 2025. In this paper, we will explore the index’s construction, historical performance and fundamental characteristics.
The recent growth in this space has been concentrated in ETFs tracking the Dow Jones U.S. Dividend 100 Index. During 2024, dividend ETFs attracted a net inflow of KRW 3.9 trillion (USD 2.7 billion), over 80% of which flocked into the ETFs tracking the Dow Jones U.S. Dividend 100 Index (see Exhibit 2).
The Dow Jones U.S. Dividend 100 Index takes a unique approach to balancing dividend yield and financial quality. Historically, this index has consistently delivered higher dividend yield and outperformed the S&P 500® over the long term.
Over the past few years, we have been closely monitoring the evolution of the Korean dividend market. As one of the fastest-growing dividend markets in APAC, Korea is making steady progress in nurturing a profit-sharing, transparent and disciplined dividend culture through legislation such as the Stewardship Code in 2015, tax cuts in 2022 and dividend record date reforms in 2023. In 2025, S&P Dow Jones Indices (S&P DJI) extended the framework of the Dow Jones U.S. Dividend 100 Index to the Korean market by launching the Dow Jones Korea Dividend 30 Index.
The Dow Jones Korea Dividend 30 Index uses a similar index construction as its U.S. peer in order to reflect quality dividend-paying companies in the Korean market. It tracks 30 high-dividend-yielding Korean stocks that have a record of consistently paying dividends and solid financial fundamentals. In this paper, we will explore the characteristics and historical performance of this index.
