Mar. 16 at 7:17 PM
Macquarie initiated coverage on PayPay with an Outperform rating and a
$22.90 price target, saying the Japanese mobile payments platform is well positioned to expand beyond digital wallets into broader financial services.
PayPay is Japan’s largest QR-code payment provider, with about 65% market share and roughly 72 million users, or around three-quarters of the country’s smartphone users. Macquarie estimates one in five cashless payments in Japan is made via QR codes.
The broker said this scale provides a strong base to expand into higher-margin financial services as PayPay evolves from a payments wallet into a broader platform offering transfers, savings, loans and investments. The company currently has about 16 million card users, 9.7 million bank accounts and 1.54 million securities accounts.
Japan’s 42.8% cashless payment penetration in 2024 also leaves room for growth, with the government targeting 65% by 2030, while QR payments have grown at about a 75% CAGR from 2019 to 2024.
$PYPL