Yield on Cost vs Dividend Yield: A New TLKM Buyer Now Earns More Than a 2021 One
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6 min read
Open a stock screener for Telkom Indonesia (TLKM) and it shows one dividend yield. Open your own portfolio, if you have held TLKM since 2021, and the real number you are earning on your own money is different. Both numbers are correct. They are just measuring two different things: dividend yield and yield on cost. Right now, for TLKM, the gap runs backwards from what most people assume: someone buying TLKM today is earning a higher yield than someone who bought it in January 2021 and never sold.
Dividend yield is the annual dividend divided by the stock's current price. It answers one question: if you bought this stock today, what percentage would this year's dividend be of what you paid?
TLKM's most recent dividend, for fiscal year 2025, was Rp221 per share, a total payout of Rp21.99 trillion confirmed by CNBC Indonesia and Investor.id. Shareholders on record as of 19 June 2026 received it by 10 July 2026. TLKM closed at Rp2,620 per share on 21 August 2026, per journalarta.com's daily market report. Divide the two: Rp221 ÷ Rp2,620 is about 8.4%. That is TLKM's dividend yield today, and it is the same number for anyone buying the stock right now, regardless of what any other TLKM shareholder paid.
Yield on cost swaps out today's price for the price you personally paid when you first bought the stock.
This number does not exist on a generic stock page, because it depends on information only you have: your own purchase price and date. Two people holding the exact same stock can have two completely different yields on cost, simply because they bought on different days.
According to a Big Alpha analysis published in January 2021, TLKM had climbed about 30% in a few weeks to close at Rp3,570 on 8 January 2021. Say you bought at that price and have held ever since. Whatever TLKM pays out this year lands on top of that original Rp3,570.
TLKM's dividend has grown steadily since then, based on figures reported by Antara, CNBC Indonesia and Investor.id across the years:
| Fiscal year | TLKM dividend per share | Paid in |
|---|---|---|
| 2021 | Rp149.97 | 2022 |
| 2022 | Rp167.59 | 2023 |
| 2023 | Rp178.50 | 2024 |
| 2024 | Rp212.46 | 2025 |
| 2025 | Rp221.00 | 2026 |
That is a 47% increase in the per-share dividend over five fiscal years. A dividend that grows every year is usually treated as unambiguously good news for a long-term holder. Here is what it actually does to each buyer's yield:
| What they paid | This year's dividend | Their yield | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Bought January 2021, still holding | Rp3,570 | Rp221 | 6.2% (yield on cost) |
| Buying today | Rp2,620 | Rp221 | 8.4% (dividend yield) |
The 2021 buyer's yield on cost, 6.2%, is lower than what a brand new buyer earns today. The dividend grew. The yield on cost still fell behind.
The reason is simple once you see both numbers side by side: TLKM's share price dropped by more than its dividend grew. Rp2,620 is about 27% below the Rp3,570 the 2021 buyer paid, while the dividend only rose 47% over the same stretch. A falling price pulls every future dividend, no matter how large, down to a smaller fraction of what an old buyer originally spent to get in.
This is not a sign TLKM is a bad dividend payer. It is a sign that yield on cost depends on two things moving in the buyer's favor at once: the dividend growing, and the price not falling faster than it does. 2026 has been a hard year for Indonesian equities generally, with the IHSG itself down sharply from its January peak, and a falling share price drags yield on cost down right along with it, even while the company keeps raising its actual payout.
The more familiar story, the one that makes yield on cost worth talking about at all, runs in the opposite direction. Picture a stock priced at Rp1,000 paying a Rp30 dividend, a 3% dividend yield. Over several years, the price climbs to Rp2,000 while the dividend also grows, to Rp50. A new buyer at Rp2,000 gets a 2.5% dividend yield. You, still holding at your original Rp1,000 cost, get that same Rp50 dividend on your Rp1,000, a 5% yield on cost, double what the new buyer receives.
That scenario is real and it does happen to long-term holders of stocks whose price and dividend both rose together. TLKM's own numbers above just show it is not automatic. Yield on cost only rewards you if the price you are measuring against, your own, held up better than today's price did.
Yield on cost is personal, backward-looking, and easy to misread:
The only way to know your real number is to look up your own average purchase price and divide this year's dividend by it, not by today's quote. TLKM's current price, dividend history and other fundamentals are on its NetWort Asset Detail page, where you can pull today's dividend figure and run the same division against whatever you actually paid.