Insights/ Data/ Indian MF decade
India’s mutual fund decade, in twelve charts.
From ₹10 lakh crore to ₹65 lakh crore in ten years. Sixteen million unique investors to seventy million. SIPs from one and a half thousand crore a month to twenty-six thousand. A visual narrative of the decade that made mutual funds India’s mainstream investment product.
01 · AUM growth
A six-and-a-half-fold decade.
Industry AUM, in lakh crore. +550% in ten years, faster than nominal GDP and faster than bank-deposit growth over the same window.
02 · Unique investors
From 1.6 crore to 4.4 crore.
Unique PAN-mapped MF investors. The largest cohort additions came after 2017, coinciding with KYC digitisation and the SIP push.
03 · SIP inflows
₹1,500cr to ₹26,000cr a month.
Monthly SIP collections, ₹ crore. The single most-cited tailwind of the decade.
04 · Category mix
Equity overtook debt in 2022.
Equity AUM crossed debt AUM in late 2022 — a long-awaited reversal for retail behaviour.
05 · Scheme count
From ~1,800 to ~2,400 schemes.
SEBI’s 2017 re-categorisation circular paused growth for two years before resuming.
06 · Expense ratios
Average equity TER, falling.
Average regular-plan equity expense ratio, weighted by AUM. SEBI’s 2018 TER reform and the rise of Direct Plans together drove a sustained decline.
07 · Top-30 vs B-30
B-30 cities now hold ~17% of AUM.
Beyond-top-30 cities, 17% of industry AUM. Up from ~13% in 2014.
08 · SIP folios
10cr live SIPs.
Active SIP folios. A 25× increase across the decade; the steady stream that smooths month-to-month flow volatility.
09 · Net flow
3 years of net outflows.
Net annual equity-fund flow. The two red bars: 2018-19 mid-cap reset and the 2020 COVID quarter.
10 · Average folio size
Stable around ₹1.4 lakh.
Average AUM per investor — striking flatness. New investors arriving small offset old ones growing larger.
11 · AUM by asset class · 2024
Where the ₹65 lakh crore sits.
Equity at 47% is the highest share since the industry began publishing this breakdown. Hybrid funds — mostly Balanced Advantage — are the fastest-growing slice in absolute terms.
12 · The decade ahead
The next ten years are about depth, not breadth.
The first decade was about getting Indians into mutual funds. The second will be about keeping them invested through cycles, deepening per-investor AUM rather than just adding folios, and closing the behaviour gap that determines whether the corpus most investors end with reflects what their fund earned. The data on the next ten years will be different. We will keep publishing it.
Educational content. Not investment advice. Industry-level data; no specific scheme is named or recommended. For SEBI-Registered Investment Advisory, see Omega Portfolio Advisors (INA000013323).