For sure, dividends donesn't mean nothing here. If a company is profitable and don't pay dividends to shareholders, they need to do something with the money that are accumulating, and they will invest on the company (new machines, products, services, etc. all accordingly with the company strategy), and if the company grows with this investments, the stock price will follows it.

Yes. Any public company must ultimately pay a dividend to be valuable.

Edit: All of my responders are ignoring my use of "ultimately". A company can certainly invest in growth, but growth only matters if the company eventually returns money to shareholders, and the only way to do that is a dividend.