These 2 Dividend Kings Just Declared Dividend Raises

Every quarterly earnings season seems to include at least a few dividend raises, as companies report their earnings and the more successful among them devote slightly more coin to shareholder remuneration.

Among the more prominent hikes announced during the first three months of 2026 (covering the last quarter of 2025) are those from a pair of ultra-famous corporate names. These two companies are not only well-known and admired, but they're also Dividend Kings -- the tiny clutch of stocks that have declared dividend raises annually for at least 50 years running. So let's briefly shine a spotlight on the boosts recently announced by Coca-Cola (NYSE: KO) and Walmart (NASDAQ: WMT).

Coca-Cola boosts its dividend by 4%

Coca-Cola's dividend raise streak is older than many of its investors. In mid-February, it announced its 64th(!) straight year of increases, with a nearly 4% boost to its quarterly payout to $0.53 per common share.

Image source: Getty Images.

To give some sense of the monster scale of the beverage titan's dividend and how important it is to management, the company spent $8.8 billion (yes, that's billion with a "b") last year on shareholder payouts. Total up the payouts since the start of 2010, and that figure reaches nearly $102 billion.

This level of return isn't all that outrageous since, in many respects, Coca-Cola is the leading example of a powerful, global business. It's hard to think of any inhabited place on this planet where the company's namesake drink (or one of its hundreds of other products) isn't sold.

Coca-Cola is also extremely focused, with an unwavering concentration on being purely a beverage maker. It also operates a high-margin business, since it mostly provides the ingredients for its various beverages and outsources the (sometimes) costlier production and distribution of the final products to partners and franchisers.

With this solid business model, built on a foundation of immense brand awareness and popularity, Coca-Cola is reliably profitable. In fact, the last time its bottom line was in the red under generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP) was nearly a decade ago, in the fourth quarter of 2017 (when more of the production and distribution was handled in-house). In 2025, full-year net revenue crept up by 2% to almost $48 billion, while profitability blasted 23% higher to over $13 billion.

Coca-Cola is one of those rare companies that delivers for its shareholders, year after year, decade after decade. Growth might not always hit the double-digit rate of the 2025 bottom line, but it's usually at least improving marginally. This is an income stock to take to the bank.

The company's latest dividend raise would give its payout a yield of 2.6%. The upcoming distribution will be handed out on April 1 to investors of record as of March 13.

Walmart raised its dividend by 5%

Walmart could lay claim to the designation as the king of American retail. The company's massive stores are ubiquitous within our borders, and it's rare to find one that isn't stuffed with customers at peak times. And like Coca-Cola, Walmart has been super consistent in declaring dividend raises; No. 53 in a row was announced on the same day as Coca-Cola's bump. In the retailer's case, this was a 5% lift to almost $0.25 per share.

Image source: Getty Images.

That news coincided with the company's publication of its fourth-quarter and full-year fiscal 2026 earnings. For the year, Walmart's total revenue rose by almost 5% to over $713 billion (again, that's not "million"), driven by comparable sales growth -- always a key performance metric for retailers -- that advanced at a similar rate. GAAP net income cruised nearly 14% higher to just under $21.9 billion.

For a company so sprawling and well-established, those are very strong growth figures. One great advantage Walmart has always effectively leveraged is its zeal for technology and innovation. It has wholeheartedly embraced e-commerce, and with its monster brick-and-mortar presence, it's been using its big stores as distribution centers. This, combined with a large-scale logistics operation, makes it quite a powerhouse in the e-commerce space.

All told, e-commerce sales for Walmart rose by a mighty 24% worldwide year over year in the fourth quarter alone.

I don't think this story is nearing an end. Analysts and the company alike are forecasting top- and bottom-line growth. The former collectively estimate the company will again post a near-5% revenue increase in fiscal 2027, with per-share net profit rising by 11%.

More than a few market professionals and investors believe Walmart is the best -- or even only -- U.S. retail stock to own. With the kind of growth, reach, and power it's demonstrated, I'm inclined to believe them. I don't think you can go wrong investing in and holding on to this stock.

Walmart's upcoming payout is scheduled to be distributed on April 6 to stockholders of record as of March 20. It isn't, alas, a high-yield dividend, as it yields only 0.8% (but that low rate is more a reflection of the strong share price performance Walmart has seen of late).

Eric Volkman has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Walmart. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.