By Nishit Navin and Kashish Tandon
(Reuters) -Shares of India’s MobiKwik soared 86% in their trading debut on Wednesday, valuing the financial technology firm at about 40 billion rupees ($474 million), as investors bet on its prospects in a booming online payments market.
The stock is currently trading at 518 rupees. It listed at 440 rupees on the National Stock Exchange, nearly 58% above its offer price of 279 rupees.
Investors had flocked to MobiKwik’s $67 million IPO last week, placing orders for about 120 times the shares on offer in one of the most heavily subscribed issues since late September.
India’s online payments market is dominated by Paytm, Walmart -backed PhonePe and Google Pay, with the transaction value set to double to 593 trillion rupees in fiscal year 2028–29 from 265 trillion rupees in 2023–24, according to PwC.
MobiKwik has a good business model, similar to that of Paytm, with a smaller valuation, which is attracting investors, said Rahul Jain, an analyst at Dolat Capital.
“The company provides a very strong and engaging platform in a very large market,” Jain said.
Paytm, MobiKwik’s only listed rival in India, went public in 2021 and is currently valued at $7.60 billion.
Millions of Indians pay online for everything from groceries to flight tickets, aiding the business of financial technology firms, popularly known as fintechs. These firms offer services including providing loans and running payment gateway solutions.
MobiKwik is the latest among a rising number of Indian firms to go public in a red-hot IPO market, where more than 300 companies have raised $17.50 billion so far this year, more than double the amount raised in the same period in 2023.
($1 = 84.9140 Indian rupees)
(Reporting by Nishit Navin and Kashish Tandon; Editing by Sonia Cheema)
