The non-existent relationship between market cap and dividend yield

Following today’s announcement that Apple, the world’s largest company, was to start paying a dividend for the first time in 17 years, I was curious to see whether there was a relationship between how big a company is (market cap) and how much it returns to shareholders each year (dividend yield %).

I looked at the 100 largest companies in the UK, as listed in the FTSE 100, and, interestingly, there was no correlation; the correlation coefficient was just 0.105.