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Data released by AMFI shows that small cap funds and sectoral funds have the highest number of folios in March 2024.
The total number of folios in small cap funds has increased by 75% from 1.09 crore in March 2023 to 1.90 crore in March 2024. The category added over 81 lakh folios in one year .
Next is sectoral funds, which saw its folio count grow to 1.82 crore in March 2024 from 1.32 crore folios in March 2023, a growth of 40%.
Mid cap fund saw the third highest growth in terms of folio count - their number increased by over 32% from 1.06 crores in FY 2023 to 1.40 crore in FY 2024.
Multi cap funds also added 20 lakh new folio to become the fourth fund category.
Next, flexi cap funds, the largest fund category by AUM reported 1.43 crore folios in March 2024. They saw an over 12% increase from 1.27 crore folios in March 2023.
In absolute terms and percentage terms, small cap funds, multi cap funds and sectoral funds were the top three fund categories, which saw highest growth in folios last year.
Overall, the number of folios in equity schemes increased by 25% in one year. The total number of folios in equity schemes increased from 9.83 crores in March 2023 to 12.28 crores in March 2024.
Let us look at the table to know more.
|
Scheme Type |
No. of Folios (March 2024) |
No. of Folios (March 2023) |
Change |
% change |
|
Small Cap Fund |
1,90,28,082 |
1,08,99,311 |
81,28,771 |
74.58 |
|
Sectoral/Thematic Fund |
1,82,48,179 |
1,31,75,494 |
50,72,685 |
38.5 |
|
ELSS |
1,61,13,976 |
1,52,72,141 |
8,41,835 |
5.51 |
|
Flexi Cap Fund |
1,42,59,500 |
1,27,01,619 |
15,57,881 |
12.27 |
|
Mid Cap Fund |
1,40,15,426 |
1,06,12,983 |
34,02,443 |
32.06 |
|
Large Cap Fund |
1,36,68,455 |
1,29,73,512 |
6,94,943 |
5.36 |
|
Large & Mid Cap Fund |
92,77,595 |
78,09,179 |
14,68,416 |
18.8 |
|
Value/Contra Fund |
61,78,068 |
46,66,901 |
15,11,167 |
32.38 |
|
Multi Cap Fund |
60,71,425 |
41,42,895 |
19,28,530 |
46.55 |
|
Focused Fund |
50,83,569 |
53,15,932 |
-2,32,363 |
-4.37 |
|
Dividend Yield Fund |
8,77,410 |
7,21,382 |
1,56,028 |
21.63 |
Agra MFD Shifali Satsangee of Funds Vedaa believes the increase in folios of small cap funds is a direct result of their performance. She said, “This shows investors are chasing returns. Small cap funds have done very well in the last 1-2 years, which has led to an increase in their popularity. Another category that picked up is multi cap funds as they have a minimum 25% allocation to small cap funds. This makes them a good option for risk-averse investors to invest in small cap.”
On increasing popularity of sectoral funds, Shifali pointed to allocation of budget to certain sectors like infrastructure and PSUs by the government as the major reason.
Seconding her view, Mumbai MFD Nikul Parmar attributes this trend to stellar performance of small cap funds in the recent past. Talking about increase in folios of multi cap funds, he said, “There have been many big NFOs in this segment from popular AMCs which has led to increase in its popularity.”
Pune MFD Ashwin Kanuga of Autus Wealth points out that many new investors started investing in mutual funds recently. “Nowadays, a lot of young investors are investing through online platforms. These platforms show a lot of data about funds that give high returns. Due to this, small cap funds get highlighted and get chosen by young investors.”
