After missing the AI opportunity to announce a huge buyback plan, Samsung Electronics stock price rose for two days

Shares of Samsung Electronics Co rose 5.98 per cent to close at 56,700 won (S $54.53) on Monday, adding to Friday's 7.2 per cent gain.

On the evening of November 15, Samsung Electronics announced that it would implement a share buyback plan of up to 10 trillion won in phases, which surprised the market. According to the first phase of its plan, Samsung Electronics is expected to buy back about 3 trillion won of shares by February 2025 and cancel all of them; After that, the board will consider how to deploy the remaining 7 trillion won of stock.

Concerns that Samsung's memory chip business has fallen behind its peers in the AI boom have sent the company's shares down nearly 30 per cent this year. By contrast, shares in rival SK Hynix have risen about 23 per cent this year.

According to Bloomberg, JP Morgan analysts said in a research note that they believe Samsung's management is moving aggressively to prevent the stock price from falling further. Sanghyun Park of Clepsydra Capital points out that buybacks help the founding families strengthen their control of the company by reducing their external holdings, and may also help them resolve collateral issues.

Samsung Electronics is still trying to catch up with rivals such as Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co LTD in outsourced chip manufacturing, while also battling a downturn and stiff competition in the smartphone and other consumer electronics markets. However, the group also recently said that it has made "significant progress" in the field of AI memory chips.

A Citigroup analyst believes that Samsung Electronics is expected at the end of November this year or a management reshuffle, the chip business may change significantly.

Samsung Electronics announced share buyback plans worth 11.3 trillion won in 2015 and 9.3 trillion won in 2017.