There are a handful of S&P/ASX 200 Index (ASX: XJO) dividend shares that continue to grow payouts to shareholders every year.
Some of them increased the payment during the difficult COVID-hit year of 2020. A few have been increasing the dividend every year for a decade or more in a row, like the two in this article.
Whilst plenty of investors know about the dividends offered by companies like Commonwealth Bank of Australia (ASX: CBA) and Fortescue Metals Group Limited (ASX: FMG), there are others that some investors may not know about as income options.
Here are two to learn about with long dividend growth records:
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Sonic Healthcare Ltd (ASX: SHL)
Sonic Healthcare is one of the world's leading companies in the healthcare pathology industry.
It's geographically diverse. In FY21, it made at least $500 million of revenue in each of these segments: the USA, Germany, Australia, the UK and Ireland, and Switzerland. It also has operations in Belgium and New Zealand, though these are considerably smaller than the other segments. Sonic also has a growing imaging division.
A key part of its earnings story over the last two years has been COVID testing. At the company's AGM, it noted that it had done 36 million COVID PCR tests in 60 Sonic laboratories globally. Keep in mind, the AGM was before the huge deluge of Omicron cases.
In FY21, the ASX 200 dividend share made a net profit of $1.32 billion, which was an increase of 149%. The company is using some of the cash flow to buy businesses which will help grow its earnings over time. Two of the latest acquisitions have been Propath and Canberra Medical Imaging.
Sonic has stated that it has a progressive dividend policy. The FY21 total dividend was increased by 7.1%. This means the trailing partially franked dividend yield is 2.5%.
APA Group (ASX: APA)
APA is one of the largest infrastructure businesses on the ASX. It is the biggest gas pipeline owner in Australia with interests in 15,000 km of natural gas pipeline infrastructure across Australia, as well as wind farms, gas-fired power generation and gas storage facilities.
It's such a key part of the Australian economy that it supplies half of the nation's natural gas usage.
Those energy assets generate annual cash flow for APA each year, which pays for the growing distribution to investors. The cash flow grows organically from the existing assets but it is also regularly investing in new assets to build its asset base. New and extended pipelines are a big focus at the moment. APA is also looking to electricity transmission and generation both in Australia and the US as future opportunities.
Plus, the ASX 200 dividend share is working on future-proofing its pipelines by considering how its pipelines can be used to transport hydrogen in the future.
In FY22, APA is planning to grow its distribution by almost 4% to 53 cents per share. At the current APA share price, that translates into a FY22 yield of 5.4%.
