Mutual funds close 2015 with highest-ever count of 4.59 crore folios

Growing retail participation for the fifth straight quarter helped mutual funds close 2015 with their highest-ever folio count of 4.59 crore, which is a growth of 13.84% (or 55.76 lakh folios) over 2014. Of this, the retail count was 4.37 crore, which is an increase of 13% or 50.69 lakh folios, according to Crisil rating agency.

The industry added 14.09 lakh (up 3.17%) folios in the December quarter sequentially, or over the September quarter (Table 1). Of this, retail accounted for 12.93 lakh folios, which is lower than the 15.11 lakh added in the September quarter.

Since December 2014, the Association of Mutual Fund in India has been disclosing data on a quarterly basis instead of half-yearly earlier.

Equity oriented funds got the lion’s share of retail folios despite market volatility. Retail folios in the segment were up 13.33% (39.53 lakh folios) at 3.36 crore despite the fact that the market as represented by Nifty 50 closed the year down 4%. The latest quarter saw a rise of 2.45% (8.04 lakh folios), also marking the fifth consecutive quarter of gains.

More high networth individuals (HNIs), or those investing Rs 5 lakh or more, preferred mutual funds. The HNI segment recorded an absolute rise of nearly 4 lakh folios in 2015 and 0.88 lakh in the December quarter, pushing its total base to 17.21 lakh. Equity, balanced and debt mutual fund categories attracted HNIs the most on both yearly and quarterly basis.