PayPay (PAYP) Eyes NASDAQ Listing in March with Projected $100B+ Valuation

PayPay, a leading QR code payment platform controlled by SoftBank Group, has filed its initial public offering documents with the SEC and anticipates a potential NASDAQ listing as early as March 2026, potentially the largest U.S. IPO for a Japanese company to date. According to SEC filings, PayPay seeks a valuation exceeding $100 billion, with founder Masaru Shibuya aiming for $200 billion. The company has not commented on the precise valuation. Financials for the nine months ended December 2024 show revenue of ¥2.785 trillion and net income of ¥1.033 trillion, compared to ¥2.204 trillion and ¥289 billion, respectively, in the same period of 2023. PayPay, established in 2018 as a joint venture with India’s Paytm, surpassed Rakuten Pay in user base, reaching over 72 million users as of December 2024. The QR code payment segment accounted for 9.6% of Japan’s cashless transactions in 2024, up from 0.2% in 2018. The company is expanding into South Korea and collaborating with Visa to explore the U.S. market, with plans to list on the NASDAQ Global Select under the symbol PAYP. This offering coincides with SoftBank’s acceleration to realize proceeds from its asset sales, including nearly $13 billion in T-Mobile stock sold between June and December 2025. While PayPay’s listing is expected to remain a subsidiary of SoftBank Corp., it is not anticipated to significantly impact the consolidated financial results.