The number folios in the mutual fund industry increased 9 per cent in the financial year ended March to 9.78 crore against 8.97 crore logged in the same period last year with Axis Mutual Fund, ICICI MF and Nippon MF leading from the front.

The renewed focus of mutual funds on digital platforms due to Covid pandemic disruptions and equity markets touching new high have aided the industry to added 79.95 lakh new folios last fiscal against 68 lakh folios in FY’20.

Interestingly, with an overall folio of 8.82 crore, retail investors accounted for 90 per cent of the industry while high net worth investors and institutional investors had 88.61 lakh and 7.91 lakh folios, as per AMFI data. Since an investor can have multiple folios in a single fund or across funds, the number of folios do not reflect the number of investors covered by the industry.

Market leaders

While ICICI Prudential and Axis MF added over 20 lakh folios in FY 2020-21, Nippon India added nearly 11 lakh folios.

Mirae Asset MF and Canara Robeco MF ranked fourth and fifth with addition of 8.26 lakh and 5.68 lakh new folios, respectively.

On the overall basis, ICICI Prudential MF has the largest number of folios in the industry at 1.14 crore. Some of the large fund houses such as HDFC MF, Aditya Birla MF, Franklin Templeton MF were among the 11 fund houses that have seen a decline in number of folios.

FT folio account declines

The folio count of Franklin Templeton, which is facing market regulator SEBI wrath, has fallen 13 per cent last fiscal to 32.78 lakh against 37.54 lakh in FY'20.

For this analysis, Kotak Mahindra MF, BOI AXA, BNP Paribas and Sundaram MF have been excluded as their data was not available on the AMFI web site.

Nimesh Shah, Managing Director & CEO, ICICI Prudential AMC, said the sharp growth in folio count was largely due to the enhanced digital push and increase in investors awareness. This apart, he said the ability deliver better returns during different market cycles with no defaults across schemes has also boosted investors confidence and resulted in getting more investors into the fold.

Equity schemes dominate

Equity schemes accounted for 68 per cent of the overall folios while hybrid and ETFs and FoF added up for 10 per cent and 6 per cent.

Swarup Mohanty, CEO, Mirae Asset Investment Managers, said the fund house believes the future of the organisation depends on investors experience.

“With the help of strong distribution partners, who have helped our investors understand our products, we have seen sustained growth in our folios. This is a positive trend for the overall industry's growth,” he added.

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