PayPay shares rise 6.2% as bearish options pressure eases
Key Facts
PayPay shares rose 6.2% in morning trading on 16 October 2026, according to Investing.com, which linked the gain to a bearish options position expiring worthless. The website identified a put option with a strike price of $7.50, expiring the same day. The report attributed the stock's move to easing pressure associated with that options position. The shares rose as the Nasdaq Composite fell 0.6%, according to the same market report. Meanwhile, the broader Standard & Poor's index was roughly flat, with the company's shares moving higher against the Nasdaq's direction.
On financial performance, PayPay reported revenue of 109.8 billion yen for the quarter ended June 2026, according to its earnings disclosure filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. That represented growth of 27% from the same period a year earlier, according to the filing. Profit for the period reached 19.7 billion yen, an increase of 83% year on year. Profit growth thus outpaced revenue growth during the quarter, as results improved from the corresponding period. The adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation margin reached 34%, according to figures the company released in its quarterly results.
In the payments segment, total transaction value reached 5.39 trillion yen during the quarter ended June, according to the company's disclosure. Transaction value rose 23% year on year, alongside an expanding base of users making monthly transactions. The number of those users stood at 41.7 million at the end of the quarter, according to the metric the company reported in its results. Their number grew 10% from the same period a year earlier. In the financial services segment, revenue rose 44% year on year to 22.5 billion yen, outpacing growth in the company's total revenue.
The customer base continued to expand beyond the end of the quarter, with PayPay announcing that registered users had reached 75 million by 9 August 2026. The company said in its statement that the number of users who had completed electronic identity verification exceeded 43 million, based on a July measurement. Explaining the improvement in profitability, management said in the official earnings call transcript that "both segments achieved operating leverage," referring to payments and financial services. Management attributed the improvement in the profit margin to this operating leverage in both segments. Meanwhile, it said higher interest rates had increased the funding cost of bank deposits and weighed on the revenue margin after transaction costs.
Alongside its June results, PayPay raised its revenue forecast for the fiscal year ending March 2027 to a range of 465 to 473 billion yen. The original guidance announced in May 2026 targeted revenue of 454.0 to 462.0 billion yen, according to the previous fiscal year's earnings statement. The company also raised its forecast for adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation to a range of 149 to 155 billion yen. That compares with the original range of 134.5 to 140.5 billion yen announced in its May guidance for the same fiscal year. The revision thus raised both the lower and upper ends of the revenue and adjusted earnings forecasts, according to a comparison of the original and updated guidance.
PayPay's American depositary shares began trading on Nasdaq on 12 March 2026, according to an official statement from SoftBank Group. The shares trade under the ticker PAYP in the U.S. market, according to the statement on the company's offering. SoftBank confirmed that PayPay would remain a group subsidiary after the initial public offering. The next event on PayPay's investor relations calendar is its second-quarter results briefing, scheduled for 4 November 2026. The company set the briefing for 9:00 a.m. Japan time, according to its official schedule.