3 Dividend Stocks to Hold for the Next 10 Years

Artificial intelligence (AI) mania has undeniably taken the stock market by storm, spurring speculative trades from investors who wouldn't normally make them. The fear of missing out is palpable.

The fact is, however, there's still much to be said for buying quality stocks in proven businesses and just letting time -- and cash dividend payments -- do most of the heavy lifting.

With that as the backdrop, here's a rundown of three great dividend stocks to buy and hold for the next 10 years. That's not to say they won't be worth owning past that point. It's just that the market is arguably underestimating just how strong the coming decade could be for its underlying companies.

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1. Merck

Take pharmaceutical giant Merck (NYSE: MRK) as an example. Its cancer-fighting wonder drug Keytruda will lose its U.S. patent protection in 2028, while its European patents will expire in 2030. Given that nearly half of the company's 2025 revenue came from Keytruda's sales of $32 billion, the stock has understandably underperformed since 2024 as this impending loss of patent protection inches closer.

Just don't lose sight of the fact that Merck's been making moves to offset the eventual loss of exclusivity for Keytruda. Case in point: Late last year, the company acquired Verona Pharma, adding its COPD treatment Ohtuvayre to its drug portfolio; analysts say it could eventually generate up to $4 billion in annual revenue.

And just this month, Merck acquired Terns Pharmaceuticals, gaining access to its promising chronic myeloid leukemia treatment, TERN-701. It's still in early-stage trials, but the FDA's "breakthrough" designation underscores the drug's ultimate potential for approval.

All told, Merck's current pipeline consists of more than 50 trials, over 30 of which are in phase 3, and five of which are currently under FDA review. The company continues to suggest it has $70 billion in annual revenue just waiting to be generated by the drugs currently in development to replace Keytruda once its revenue is reduced to nil. It's just not going to reach that sales pace until the mid-2030s.

Simply making progress toward that target, however, should produce a bullish tailwind for Merck stock during these 10 years.

2. Verizon

Verizon Communications (NYSE: VZ) isn't a growth stock by any stretch of the imagination. That's because the country's wireless market is as mature as it is saturated. Pew Research reports 98% of all adults living in the United States already own a mobile phone, for perspective. Population growth accounts for most of its business growth, and it's pretty slow these days.

The very nature of its business, however, still makes this name a fantastic dividend stock. Consumers may cut back on discretionary goods like apparel or postpone buying a new car when money gets tight. Few people are willing to let go of their mobile connection to the rest of the world, though. They'll pay whatever it takes to keep their phones turned on.

Verizon just needs to make sure it's price-competitive -- which it is. In fact, the company's expecting to add between 750,000 and 1 million (net) new postpaid customers this year, adding to the 94 million it already serves. Not bad.

But there are a couple of other growth engines at work here that most investors may not fully appreciate.

One of them is Verizon's fixed wireless access (FWA) home internet service, which wirelessly provides consumers with broadband connectivity. This business now serves 6 million customers, adding more than 270,000 just last quarter, versus practically none as of 2021. This option is becoming an increasingly popular alternative in an industry that's long depended on cable companies' beefy coaxial lines connected directly to consumers' homes.

The other underappreciated growth driver here is Verizon's foray into artificial intelligence. While it's obviously not a hardware provider like Nvidia, Verizon's AI Connect arm helps institutions establish the communications and networking infrastructure needed to make the most of what AI can do for them. Alphabet and Meta Platforms are a couple of this division's current customers.

Newcomers will be plugging into a forward-looking dividend yield of 6%. That yield is based on a dividend, by the way, that's now been raised for 19 consecutive years.

3. Equinix

Finally, add Equinix (NASDAQ: EQIX) to your list of dividend stocks to hold for the next 10 years. It's not a household name and may never be one. That doesn't mean it's not a terrific dividend holding, though.

Equinix is a data center owner/operator, leasing access to its AI-capable servers to organizations that can't -- or just don't want to -- build one of their own. Coca-Cola Europacific Partners, VMWare, and Zoom Communications are just some of its customers, contributing to last quarter's $2.44 billion in (largely recurring) revenue that was up 10% year over year. Profits are growing even faster now that the company has achieved meaningful scale.

The artificial intelligence data center business, of course, is a great one to be in right now. Mordor Intelligence expects the industry to grow at an average annual rate of 25% through 2031, although it could certainly continue growing at a strong double-digit pace after that.

That's not quite Equinix's big selling point to interested income investors, however. Neither is the fact that the company has now upped its yearly per-share payout for 11 consecutive years.

Rather, what makes this stock such a compelling income-producing prospect is the underlying company's structure. It's a real estate investment trust (REIT). That just means it doesn't pay corporate income taxes on its own profits, as long as it passes the majority of those profits along to shareholders in the form of dividends.

This ultimately means Equinix is a very efficient way for investors to plug into the fast-growing AI data center opportunity and begin collecting a meaningful, recurring return on their investment right away.

The forward-looking yield of just under 2% isn't exactly thrilling. Just keep in mind that the last quarterly dividend increase was a 10% improvement, extending a long streak of similar dividend growth.

James Brumley has positions in Alphabet. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Alphabet, Equinix, Merck, Meta Platforms, Nvidia, and Zoom Communications. The Motley Fool recommends Verizon Communications. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.