Walmart-backed PhonePe has extended its lead atop India’s digital payments landscape, even as its much-anticipated stock market debut remains on hold. The Sameer Nigam-led company is expected to revive its listing plans once global capital markets find steadier footing.
India’s UPI ecosystem hit a milestone in May, crossing 23 billion monthly transactions for the first time and processing a record Rs 29.9 lakh crore, according to NPCI data. App-wise figures for the month are yet to be released, but PhonePe’s April numbers tell a commanding story — the platform captured 46.2% of transaction volume and 49.3% of transaction value, leaving Google Pay a distant second and Paytm further behind.
Challengers such as Navi, super.money and Cred are making noise, but none have meaningfully dented PhonePe’s dominance. That leadership now underpins a high-stakes IPO, through which Walmart, Tiger Global and Microsoft Global Finance plan to offload stakes worth Rs 10,115 crore. The issue is structured entirely as an offer-for-sale of up to 50.7 million shares, with no fresh capital being raised.
Payments remain the engine — accounting for over 80% of revenue — but PhonePe has spent the past few years quietly building a financial services stack around it. Insurance, lending and wealth products now contribute 11.55% of revenue, up sharply from 3.58% in FY24, as per its updated draft red herring prospectus. The company distributes credit through 56 banking and NBFC partners, operating as a loan service provider across consumer and merchant loans, as well as secured products like loans against gold, mutual funds and vehicles.
PhonePe is also renewing its push for a direct lending licence from the RBI, having fallen short on previous attempts. Alongside that ambition, the platform crossed 700 million registered users in April — a scale few fintechs anywhere in the world can match, even as UPI’s monetisation potential remains largely untapped.
PhonePe’s journey also illustrates how India’s digital payments revolution has created opportunities for homegrown firms to achieve scale that was once the preserve of traditional banks and global technology giants.