AbstractUniversal‐filtered multi‐carrier (UFMC) is a promising waveform technology, which inherits the robustness of FBMC and simplicity of OFDM. In this article, the UFMC waveform is combined with the massive multi‐user multiple‐input and multiple‐output (MU‐MIMO) technology to meet the desired needs of future wireless networks. In order to eliminate MU interference (MUI), the precoding is essential in massive MU‐MIMO downlink. However, the transmitted signals produced by the precoders have high peak‐to‐average power ratio (PAPR), thus resulting in reduction of power efficiency of the system. Hence, this article proposes the quantized MU precoding and companding schemes to increase the power efficiency of UFMC‐based massive MU‐MIMO downlink systems. A nonlinear quantized precoder called squared‐infinity norm Douglas‐Rachford splitting (SQUID), which generates signals with constant envelope, is proposed. The proposed SQUID precoder reduces the power consumption and MUI of UFMC‐based massive MU‐MIMO systems. Moreover, a piecewise linear companding (PLC) scheme, which further reduces the PAPR by employing two threshold values and one companding parameter, is also proposed. The simulation results confirm that the proposed UFMC‐based massive MU‐MIMO with quantized nonlinear SQUID precoding provides better performance than quantized linear precoders. Besides, the proposed system with the PLC scheme offers better PAPR reduction of 4.5 dB when compared with linear nonsymmetrical transform and ‐law schemes.