TOKYO — SoftBank-backed PayPay priced its U.S. initial public offering at $16 per American depositary share Wednesday for a Nasdaq listing, below its $17 to $20 marketed range and giving the Japanese digital wallet operator a market value of about $10.7 billion. The company and its backers accepted a lower price after a volatile stretch for IPOs reset expectations, even as interest in the deal remained strong, March 11.
In its official pricing statement, SoftBank said 54,987,214 ADSs were priced at $16, with 31,054,254 sold by PayPay and 23,932,960 sold by a SoftBank-controlled selling shareholder. Reuters reported the structure raised about $880 million and implied a market value of roughly $10.7 billion. SoftBank also said a public offering in Japan is planned at the same price, the ADSs are expected to begin trading on Nasdaq under PAYP, and PayPay will remain a consolidated subsidiary after the offering.
Why the PayPay IPO priced below range
The markdown stood out against the company’s own roadshow launch disclosure, which set an estimated price of $17 to $20 per ADS. A separate Reuters report ahead of pricing said the order book was more than five times oversubscribed, but bankers were still steering the deal toward the low end as fighting in the Middle East rattled markets and made investors more selective about new listings.
Even with the lower price, PayPay came to market with real scale. In its registration statement, the company said it had about 72 million registered users as of Dec. 31, underscoring why investors still treated the deal as one of the more closely watched Japanese listings in the United States this year.
How the PayPay IPO story evolved
The lower-than-hoped pricing is more striking because the PayPay IPO story has been building for years. Reuters first reported in July 2023 that SoftBank was considering a U.S. listing for PayPay. By August 2025, SoftBank said PayPay had applied to list American depositary shares in the United States, and in October 2025 Reuters reported that some investors thought the business could be worth more than $20 billion. That arc makes this week’s $10.7 billion valuation look less like the number backers once hoped for and more like the price investors were willing to accept now.
For SoftBank, the message is mixed but still usable: PayPay reached the public market in a sizeable deal, yet it did so on terms that favor execution over ambition. For investors, the more important question now is whether the lower entry price leaves room for steadier trading after the debut than the bolder valuation talk that surrounded the company only a few months ago.
