Japan’s PayPay Files for US IPO, Targets Valuation Above US$10B

SoftBank‘s digital payments unit, PayPay, has filed publicly for a US IPO.

The listing could be the largest by a Japanese company on a US exchange. PayPay may list as early as March.

PayPay is seeking a valuation above US$10 billion.

SoftBank founder Masayoshi Son is pushing for as much as US$20 billion, according to people familiar with the matter, Bloomberg reported.

The company reported a profit of ¥103.3 billion on revenue of ¥278.5 billion for the nine months ended December.

A year earlier, it posted a profit of ¥28.96 billion on ¥220.4 billion in revenue. The filing said PayPay will disclose the share count and price range in a later submission.

PayPay launched in 2018 as a joint venture with Vision Fund-backed Paytm. It quickly overtook Rakuten Group Inc’s Rakuten Pay.

The company relied on heavy marketing, subsidies and SoftBank-backed merchant acquisition. As of December, PayPay had more than 72 million users in Japan.

QR-code payments made up 9.6% of Japan’s cashless transactions in 2024, up from 0.2% in 2018, according to the Economy Ministry.

Credit cards held an 82.9% share, but that share continues to shrink.

PayPay is majority-owned by SoftBank Group and SoftBank Corp. It has expanded overseas ahead of the listing. Last year, it enabled payments at more than two million merchants in South Korea.

The IPO comes as SoftBank sells assets to fund new artificial intelligence investments. The group sold nearly US$13 billion of T-Mobile US Inc shares between June and December.

PayPay will remain a subsidiary of SoftBank Corp after the IPO.

The company expects no material impact on consolidated earnings. Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase & Co, Mizuho Financial Group and Morgan Stanley are leading the offering. PayPay plans to list on the Nasdaq Global Select Market under the ticker PAYP.

Featured image credit: Edited by Fintech News Hong Kong, based on image by freepik

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