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Walmart ( WMT ) to sell around 46 million shares in PhonePe IPO

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Tiger Global, Microsoft ( MSFT ) to fully exit PhonePe stake

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PhonePe received regulatory nod for IPO

By Gursimran Mehar

Jan 22 (Reuters) -

Walmart ( WMT ) 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 ( MSFT ) plan to exit

their ​stakes, according to updated draft papers dated Wednesday.

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 Tuesday, citing sources.

It aims ‌to list by mid-2026, a source told ​Reuters last

September.

Walmart ( WMT ), which holds an about 72% stake in PhonePe, is

selling nearly 46 million shares in the IPO, while ⁠smaller

shareholders Tiger Global and Microsoft ( MSFT ) 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 September 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)