NSE active clients up 21% in FY25; Groww cements lead with 36% growth

National Stock Exchange (NSE), India’s largest bourse, saw its active client base grow by 21 per cent to 49.2 million in FY25, fuelled by robust stock market gains in the first half of the financial year. At the close of FY24, active clients — those executing at least one trade in 12 months — totalled 40.8 million.

Groww Invest Tech solidified its dominance, with active clients surging 36 per cent to nearly 13 million, boosting its market share by 286 basis points (bps) to 26.3 per cent IPO-bound Groww outpaced Zerodha, the former market leader and India’s most profitable brokerage, whose market share dipped by 184 bps to 16 per cent. Angel One narrowed the gap with Zerodha, recording a 24 per cent year-on-year rise in active clients to 7.58 million, just behind Zerodha’s 7.9 million.

Upstox reported a modest 9.2 per cent growth, reaching 2.75 million clients. The top four discount brokers — Groww, Zerodha, Angel One, and Upstox —commanded a 63.3 per cent market share, up from 62.4 per cent a year ago.

Traditional brokerages ICICI Securities, HDFC Securities, Kotak Securities, and SBICap Securities occupied the next four spots. Among the top 10, Moneylicious Securities (Dhan) posted the fastest growth, with active clients more than doubling to around 1 million.

In FY25, domestic brokerages added a record 41.1 million demat accounts, bringing the total to 192.4 million: the highest annual increase ever. However, this figure overstates unique investors, as individuals can hold multiple accounts. Estimates peg India’s distinct investor base at approximately 120 million.

Since the pandemic, the capital market has gained traction, driven by streamlined account-opening processes, largely bullish trends, and lower trading costs.

FY25 was a rollercoaster for equity investors. A strong first half gave way to volatility in the second, wiping out much of the early gains. The Nifty rose 5.3 per cent and the Sensex gained 7.5 per cent their weakest annual showing since FY23. The Nifty Midcap 100 and Nity Smallcap 100 indices fared slightly better, up 7.5 per cent and 5.4 per cent, respectively. The Sensex soared nearly 15 per cent in the first six months, but lacklustre corporate earnings in the July-September and October-December quarters, coupled with high valuations and sustained selling by foreign portfolio investors (FPIs), triggered a market pullback.