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PhonePe India IPO set to see Walmart cut stake as Tiger Global, Microsoft exit
The three firms will together sell around 50.7 million shares in the offering.
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Reuters - Wed, 21, Jan 2026
- 23:15 EST
- 12
A view shows a Microsoft logo at Microsoft offices in Issy-les-Moulineaux near Paris, France, March 25, 2024. / REUTERS/Gonzalo Fuentes/File Photo
Walmart will trim its stake in PhonePe by about 12% in the Indian payments firm's much-anticipated initial public offering, while Tiger Global and Microsoft plan to exit their stakes, according to updated draft papers dated Jan. 21.
PhonePe, which competes with Google Pay and Paytm in India, had received regulatory approval for its stock market listing after confidentially filing for an IPO in September, Reuters reported on Jan. 20, citing sources.
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It aims to list by mid-2026, a source told Reuters last September.
Walmart, which holds an about 72% stake in PhonePe, is selling nearly 46 million shares in the IPO, while smaller shareholders Tiger Global and Microsoft are fully exiting their stakes, the updated draft red herring prospectus showed.
The three firms will together sell around 50.7 million shares in the offering. PhonePe will not issue any new shares in the IPO and will not receive proceeds from the sale.
PhonePe's IPO plan comes amid buoyant Indian primary markets, where fundraising hit a record high in 2025. India ranked as the world's second-largest primary market in 2025 after the United States, with 367 IPOs raising $21.8 billion, according to LSEG-compiled data.
The company is the leading payments platform on India's popular unified payments interface (UPI), commanding more than 45% market share by transaction volume, as of December 2025.
PhonePe's loss widened to 14.44 billion rupees ($157.80 million) in the six-month period ended Sep. 30, from 12.03 billion rupees a year ago, while revenue rose about 22% to 39.18 billion rupees, the filing showed.
The company has more than 657 million registered users and offers payment solutions to over 47 million merchants.
In 2024, India delayed the rollout of market-share caps on UPI, providing a boost to PhonePe and Google Pay, which dominate the payments platform.
Kotak Mahindra Capital, Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan, Citi, Morgan Stanley and Jefferies are among the book-running lead managers for the offering.
($1 = 91.5100 Indian rupees)
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