Fortunately for income investors, they have a lot of options to choose from on the Australian share market.
So many it can be hard to decide which ones to buy over others.
To help narrow things down, let's look at a two ASX dividend shares that analysts rate as buys. Here's why they could be top picks for income investors:
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Dexus Convenience Retail REIT (ASX: DXC)
The first ASX dividend share that could be a buy is the Dexus Convenience Retail REIT.
That's the view of analysts at Bell Potter, which are very positive on the owner of a quality portfolio of Australian service stations and convenience retail assets that are predominantly located on Australia's eastern seaboard.
Bell Potter recently noted that "while we do see asset values declining (BPe 10bp cap rate expansion), trading at a 20% discount to NTA and 10% discount to BPe NAV looks too punitive to us for a defensive sub-sector."
Another positive is that its analysts are expecting some very big dividend yields in the near term. The are forecasting dividends per share of approximately 21 cents in FY 2025 and FY 2026. Based on its current share price of $2.98, this implies dividend yields of 7% in both years.
Bell Potter currently has a buy rating and $3.30 price target on its shares.
BHP Group Ltd (ASX: BHP)
Another ASX dividend share that gets the thumbs up from analysts is BHP.
It is of course one of the globe's largest miners with a collection of world class operations covering a range of commodities.
The team at Goldman Sachs likes the company. This is largely due to its exposure to copper, which the broker believes is heading into a bull market.
It explains that its analysts "remain bullish on copper due to ongoing supply side challenges and increasing demand and expect BHP's copper EBITDA to increase by ~US$3bn to ~US$10bn by FY26E (~45% of group EBITDA). Under our base case, copper EBITDA is expected to reach US$14bn by FY35E and ~US$19bn with all copper growth, at GSe long run copper of US$4.44/lb (real $, from 2028)."
Goldman Sachs expects this to underpin fully franked dividends of 99 US cents (~A$1.58) per share in FY 2025 and US$1.08 (~A$1.73) in FY 2026. Based on BHP's current share price of $39.68, this implies dividend yields of 4% and 4.35%, respectively.
Goldman Sachs currently has a buy rating and $47.40 price target on its shares.
