Today, October 5, is PayPay’s birthday! The PayPay app was released on the same day three years ago in 2018.
Starting from where no one knew what code payments were, PayPay has been staying ahead of the times and grew rapidly over the past three years by running all sorts of incredible campaigns and working with the government to promote cashless payments. Now, we have more than 41 million users.
On a side note, October 5 is not only PayPay’s birthday, but also the day of “miso oden,” “decoration,” “teachers,” and “internal reports” (from Japan Anniversary Association)
Do you feel like PayPay has been around for three years already, or only three years? Here is a brief timeline of the last three years of PayPay. Let’s check it out!
History of PayPay
PayPayの歩み
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- 2018.10.05
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Code Payment service “PayPay” launched
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- 2018.12.05
- Start of 10 Billion Yen Giveaway Campaign Finished in just 10 days
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- 2019.09
- Started supporting Apple Watch
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- 2019.08-09
- Number of PayPay users
exceeds 10 million
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- 2019.10
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・Number of PayPay users exceeds 15 million
・PayPay 1st Anniversary Campaign
・More than 1.5 million merchants
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- 2020.02
- Number of PayPay users
exceeds 20 million
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- 2020.04
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・State of emergency declared due to Covid
・Over 28 million PayPay users and 2 million merchants
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- 2020.05
- Number of total payments exceeds 1 billion
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- 2020.07
- Initiated the Support Your Town Project
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- 2020.07
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・Myna Point registration started
・Number of PayPay users exceeds 30 million
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- 2020.09
- Shift to “Work From Anywhere at Anytime,” a new mode of work/dd>
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- 2020.11
- Started offering PayPay Coupons/dd>
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- 2021.03
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・Business integration of ZHD and LINE
・Over 36 million PayPay users and 3 million merchants
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- 2021.06
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・Home screen of the PayPay app renewed
・Number of PayPay users exceeds 40 million
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- 2021.08
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・“LINE Pay” payments become available at PayPay merchants
・Number of “Earn Bonus” mini app users exceeds 4 million
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- 2021.10
- Introduced payment system fee of 1.6%※
* Fee when enrolled in PayPay My Store Lite Plan
You may remember that PayPay recently garnered a lot of attention with the announcement that it would be introducing a merchant payment system fee and “PayPay My Store.” This new system, along with PayPay coupons and other appealing options, will allow merchants to attract more customers and users to save more money.
With payments at its core, PayPay is taking an even bigger step towards becoming a super-app, a place where users can find all kinds of useful services to enrich their lives. We will continue to surprise everyone with more and more innovative and eye-opening features on the PayPay app.
In the above timeline, I have listed up PayPay’s major events during its hectic startup period, but there are also many other precious moments that I could not include due to space constraints.
At PayPay, we have a culture to enjoy a fast-paced, fast-changing environment. I think that’s why we’ve been able to achieve this level of growth in such a short time.
PayPay will continue to create new trends. Stay tuned to PayPay Inside-Out for updates on what’s happening.

Written by: Keiko (PayPay Inside-Out Editor) / Supervisor: Az / Design: Tak
*Employees’ affiliations are those of the time of the interview.