Ladies and gentlemen, good day, and welcome to the Nippon Life India Asset Management Limited Q1 FY 2024 earnings conference call. Hosted by Kotak Securities Limited. As a reminder, all participant lines will be in the listen-only mode, and there will be an opportunity for you to ask questions after the presentation concludes. Should you need assistance during the conference call, please signal an operator by pressing Star, then Zero on your touchtone phone. Please note that this call is being recorded. I now hand over the conference to Mr. Abhinav Thakare from Kotak Securities. Thank you, and over to you, Mr. Thakare.
Good evening, everyone. On behalf of Kotak Securities, I welcome you all to 1Q FY 2024 earnings call for Nippon Life India Asset Management Limited. We have with us Mr. Sundeep Sikka, ED and CEO, along with the senior management team of Nippon Life India Asset Management. I would like to hand over the call to Mr. Sikka for his opening remarks. Over to you, sir.
Thanks. Good evening, welcome to our Q1 FY 2024 earnings conference call. We have with us Chief Financial Officer, Prateek Jain, Chief Business Officer, Saugata Chatterjee, Chief Business Officer, Aashwin Dugal, Chief Digital Officer, Arpanarghya Saha, Head of Product Management and Investor Relations, Arun Sundaresan, and Shin Matsuisan, nominee of Nippon Life Japan. Our detailed investor presentation and press release has been uploaded on the exchanges as well as on our website. I will base my comments in three parts: industry overview, our performance, and the way forward. Starting off with the markets, equity markets in Q1 FY 2024 were down, with the Nifty 50 rising by 11% and Nifty Mid and Smallcap indices rising by 18% and 20% respectively.
RBI held the repo rate steady at 6.5%, while the 10-year G-Sec yield declined by 19 basis points quarter-on-quarter to 7.12%. Coming to the data on the industry, the industry AUM grew by 6.4% quarter-on-quarter in Q1 FY2024 to INR 43.1 trillion. This is the highest quarterly growth since Q2 FY2022. On a year-on-year basis, its quarterly average AUM grew by 14.2%. Moving to flows. The equity category witnessed a gross inflow of INR 1.13 trillion and a net inflow of INR 137 billion. A large part of the inflows in the category were from small and midcap schemes.
Investor interest in investing through systematic investment plans further increased, with the SIP contribution for the quarter being INR 432 billion, 19% higher than Q1 FY 2023 and 3% higher than Q4 FY 2023. Monthly SIP flows in June 2023 stood at INR 147 billion, which was marginally below the all-time high achieved in May 2023. SIP portfolios increased by 5% quarter-on-quarter to 66.5 million. Arbitrage funds also witnessed strong inflows of INR 137 billion. Fixed income category, that is debt plus liquid, witnessed a net inflow of INR 1.35 trillion after a large outflow witnessed in Q4 FY 2023. ETF flows were healthy at INR 150 billion.
At the end of the quarter, the unique investors in the mutual fund industry increased to 38.3 million, while industry portfolios increased to 149.1 million. Increasing financialization, higher awareness, and better reach through new age technology platforms and distribution network should see continued growth in the mutual fund industry going forward. Now moving to our business performance. We closed the quarter with total assets under management of INR 4.04 trillion. This includes mutual funds, managed accounts, and offshore funds. Our mutual fund quarterly average AUM grew by 7% quarter-on-quarter and 12% Y-o-Y to reach INR 3.14 trillion. Now, I would like to share five key highlights for the quarter. Starting with market share.
Our market share increased 4 basis points quarter-on-quarter to 7.28, with the market share increases across all asset categories, barring liquid. Our equity market share, which has been stable at 6.19% over the last 4 quarters, has seen an improvement of 7 basis points and has increased to 6.26%. We also gained market share in our debt segment, which is 44 basis points quarter-on-quarter and ETF 12 basis points quarter-on-quarter. On the segmental front, our HNI category market share improved for the 6th quarter in a row. HNI AUM grew 13% quarter-on-quarter to INR 872 billion. Market share increased 19 basis points quarter-on-quarter to 5.99%.
Individual AUM, which consists of retail and HNI AUM, also grew by 13% quarter-on-quarter to INR 1,837 billion. Market share increased 17 basis points quarter-on-quarter to 7.16. Highlight number 5, our B30 AUM grew by 13.4% quarter-on-quarter to INR 631 billion, which makes us the fastest growing large AMC in B30 locations. Our market share improved by 19 basis points quarter-on-quarter to 8.33. This segment forms 19% of our AUM versus 17% for the industry. I would like to share that NAM India has also been appointed as one of the AMCs for managing EPFO corpus for ETFs. The investment commenced from the beginning of July 2023. I would also like to touch upon other important aspects of our performance.
We added half a million investor portfolios in the quarter and continue to have the largest base in the mutual fund industry, with 14.1 million unique investors, which is a market share of 37%. Systematic flows are a stable and a key driver of mutual fund industry, long-term equity flows. I'm happy to share that there has been a steady uptick in our systematic flows over the last eight quarters, and this has led to increase our market share. Our systematic book rose by 10% to INR 12.2 billion for June 2023, over March 2023. This resulted in an annual systematic book of approximately INR 147 billion. Number of systematic transactions for the quarter increased 8% quarter-on-quarter to more than 10.7 million.
63% of our SIP AUM has continued for over 5 years versus 25% for the industry. In volatile markets, portfolios with lower ticket size have demonstrated longer vintage and better stickiness. 17% of our SIP portfolios have continued for more than 5 years as against the industry average of 12%. Generally, as market moves up, we typically tend to see high redemption in equity segment. Given the granular nature of our AUM, and specifically SIP AUM for us, we have seen lower impact of redemptions versus the industry. This is evident from the fact that we have had net sales market share in excess of 20% in equity for Q1 FY 2024, except equity index.
At Nippon India Mutual Fund, we offer industry best yield of passive products with an ETF ecosystem which is already in place and far ahead of the peers in terms of investor base and mind share. We continue to be one of the largest ETF players with an AUM of INR 738 billion and a market share of 13.9%. Gold ETF is the biggest in the category with an INR of, with INR 78 billion in assets. Our share in industry ETF portfolios is 61%. We have 70% of the ETF volumes on NSE and BSE. Our ETF average daily volumes across key funds remain far higher than the rest of the industry. I would like to provide a brief update on our AIF and international businesses.
Under Nippon India AIF, we offer Category three, Category two and Category three alternative investment funds and have a total commitment of INR 57.5 billion across various schemes. We had launched our tech fund of funds in 2020, which was anchored by large Japanese institutional corporate investors. We are now in the process of raising commitments for a second similar fund. We have also recently launched a credit AIF for which fundraising process is underway. We continue to strengthen our AIF offering, and in the quarter, we appointed a new head of AIF, Mr. Ashish Chuggani, post the superannuation of our previous head.
We would like to continue focus on fundraising from international markets, and as mentioned in our recent AGM by Tomohiro Yao , who is the Chairman of CEO, and CEO of Nippon Life Asia and director on the NAM India board, Nippon Life remains committed in supporting NAM India's offshore operations. Moving to our strong distribution franchise. A digital-centric strategy remains at the core of our future growth. Digital has always been a potential beta at Nippon India Mutual Fund. Our digital lead that leverage evolution, access and privacy, doctrine across the organization and our franchise is helping us to be trusted, agile, and future ready. We will keep continuing to strengthen our digital ecosystem to simplify the investment experience and build a frictionless ecosystem for our investor partners.
Digital purchase transactions rose to INR 1.06 million in Q1 FY2024, up 42% year-on-year. This is the first time that our digital transactions crossed INR 1 million in a quarter. The digital channels also contributed 57% to the total new purchases transactions for the quarter. While I have already spoken about our digital infrastructure, we have a well-diversified physical distribution base with a wide presence through 270 locations across the country. We have over 93,000 distributors, including over 92,800 MFDs. We added over 2,000 distributors during the quarter. I would now like to take you about a few other developments. Starting with our small cap fund, while the AUM growth is of high importance for AUM, we continue to act with highest priority towards investors' interest.
With this backdrop, seeing the current market condition, we stopped accepting lump sum investments in our small cap fund with effect from July seventh, and continue with the SIPs. We would like to evaluate the restarting of the lump sum investment when we feel the market opportunity is right. On the regulatory environment, as you are aware, SEBI came out with a consultation paper in May 2023 regarding the review of TER charged by AMCs. Post that, as mentioned in media, SEBI is expected to come with a revised paper after incorporating industry feedback. We await the details regarding the same. On our financial performance. For Q1 FY 2024, operating profit stood at INR 1.93 billion, up 13% year-on-year. Profit after tax stood at INR 2.36 billion, an increase of 107% year-on-year and 19% quarter-on-quarter.
As a part of our capital allocation strategy, we would like to reiterate, we have a stated dividend policy to distribute 60%-90% of our profits to shareholders. In FY 2023, we distributed 100% of our profits. In addition, we also remain open to evaluate investments in strategic opportunities that add to the profitability and complement our existing businesses. Briefly moving on to ESG. As a signatory to UN PRI, we are integrating ESG aspects into the various areas of planning, operation, fund management, risk and governance. Our goal is to encourage higher adoption of ESG principles within the asset management industry. Our ESG ratings are amongst the best in the financial industry, with NAM India now rated low risk by Sustainalytics.
As a responsible investment manager, we are building resilient portfolio that will not only provide sustainable returns to our portfolio or to our investors, but will also have a positive environmental and social impact. For those of you that may have a greater interest in ESG, I urge you to go through our recent annual report, which also contains complete ESG report and BRSR report for FY 23. To sum up, I would like to reiterate that investor first remains our key theme. We will continue to do what is right for our investors with sustainable, profitable growth for our shareholders. We will continue to build our business going forward on the pillars of brand, distribution, performance, people, process, and trust. I'm happy to state that one out of three mutual fund investors in India invest with NAM India.
With these comments, we are happy to take your questions. Thank you.
Thank you, sir. We will now begin the question-and-answer session. Anyone who wishes to ask a question may press star and 1 on their touchtone telephone. If you wish to remove yourself from the question queue, you may press star and 2. Participants are requested to use handsets while asking a question. Ladies and gentlemen, we will wait for a few moments while the question queue assembles. Our first question comes from the line of Paresh Jain of Motilal Oswal. Please go ahead, sir.
Hi, good evening, everyone. Firstly, on the yield front, can you throw some light as to why the yield dropped in this quarter?
Yeah. Prayesh, you know, we've been maintaining that, you know, we have always been focusing on sustainable growth and unit economics have been our guiding lighthouse for all our product launches, distribution strategies, et cetera. If you look at overall operating income at 45 basis points is in line with the industry. Our operating income is up 13% Y-o-Y and even if you look at expense income ratio has been about 34%, you know, improved from 48% last year. See the, you know, the declining yields are more function of the industry for 2 or 3 reasons. One, that as and when our equity AUM is growing, you know, because of the nature of the TER provided by SEBI, you know, our yields goes down.
The second is that, you know, given the fact that B30 incentives, there has been a moratorium, obviously, for the fresher flows from. As you are aware that, you know, for us, the IFA and the smaller cities and towns has been our, you know, biggest constituency, which support us, and therefore, once that was done, obviously the cost of acquisition has been marginally higher. That is the second reason. The other reason is, you know, we have strategically reduced some of the expenses, some of our debt schemes, where we believe that, if we, you know, we'll be able to get more absolute AUM, which will compensate the yield decline, and, you know, we'll see an absolute growth in profitability.
That is again, you know, the technically two things which we have made changes.
... also, the composition of index increasing and which you've seen again in industry index in ETF, you know, that is also, the composition change will also lead to this, yield compression. As I mentioned, that broadly this is in line with, you know, the industry realization, and also, most of the factors are, you know, beyond our controls, and these are all asset mix issues and, the increase in AUM for the respective schemes.
Got that. Sanjeev, one more on the employee expense that is up sequentially. What's the reason for the change?
Sorry?
Employee expenses, which are up sequentially in the quarter.
If you look at it on quarter-on-quarter base, sequentially, you know, if you see, the last year, quarter one versus this year, it is, you know, flat. Sequentially, if you recollect that, look, we have mentioned that we have reduced our bonus provisions, what we were carrying throughout the year in the fourth quarter, and therefore, there was a, you know, decline in the fourth quarter last year.
Yeah, yeah, I got that. Got that.
Yeah. That was one-off, and therefore, you know, this time it looks, it appears higher, but otherwise it is in line with, actually what we had, you know, provided in the, or what we have spent in the first quarter of last year. On the contrary, there is a efficiency which has come in, because of the fact that despite giving an increase of 7%-8%, which I mentioned, you know, we are blocking the similar run rate for our employee cost.
Okay. Okay. got that. From a more, you know, strategic standpoint, and, correct me if I'm wrong, you said 20% of your, you had a 20% share in equity in net inflows. Is that correct?
Yeah, that's correct.
Okay, wow! That's a great number. You know, apart from the fact that, you know, the performance has improved, is there anything else from a strategic point that you would have changed in the last and that would have strategically more results for you in terms of distribution for that matter?
There's Sundeep this side . I think we continue with the continuous effort over the period of time, which is yielding results. I think SIP continues to be our focus because SIP numbers have also doubled almost in last 12 months. I think you're getting with the lag effect, I think you're getting higher inflows. I think it's not only one thing, it's multiple things which have been done over the last two to three years, which is now showing results.
There's nothing on the commission front that you would have changed materially, right?
No, we have not changed any commissions.
Great. Congratulations, and all the best.
Thank you. The next question comes from the line of Lalit Dev from Equirus Securities. Please go ahead.
Good evening, sir. Thank you for the opportunity. Sir, just quickly, so firstly, sir, you mentioned that we are, we have been given a mandate to manage the EPF corpus. Like, from language, like, what will be the allocation over there, and like, what kind of yields do we make in that area?
I think broadly, it will be very difficult to put a number to it, you know, because I think it's been more on a percentage basis. Typically, we'll be getting about one, roughly about one-fourth of all the allocation being done by EPFO. It will be coming into our existing ETFs, I think, and the average ETF, I think if you see our present Nifty ETF, the yield is about, 4, between 4 to 5 basis points, and that will continue because it's coming in the same fund.
Sir, just a clarification, so this will be only in the equity area, not on the, like, the PMS kind of, structure?
This mandate is, this money will be coming in our, both our ETFs, Nifty and Sensex ETF.
Okay. Sure. Like, like we have been talking about our next sales market share. Like, could you also qualitatively comment on our gross sales number, like how it has improved, and as now, is it, like, better than our AUM market share? Because like for us, our equity AUM market share has been pretty much stagnant, pretty much stable around 6.1% and 6.2%. Just wanted to understand over there.
I think broadly, if you were to look at our equity market share has gone up a few basis points. I think 7 basis points. Clearly, as you mentioned, and as I mentioned in the earlier question, the SIP numbers have been increasing. I think the SIPs have almost doubled. The SIP book, 12 months back, I think, was about the same, INR 500-550 crore. Today it has come to about INR 1,200 crore. I think all these are helping in the lag effect, and also because of the nature of the business, I think typically when the markets go up, we see redemptions. Businesses like ours, where we deal with a lot of small ticket size SIPs, this area is lot more sticky.
I think it's a combination of multiple things. It's not one thing, you know, that is leading to this increase. Overall, equity growth sales have also moved up from 6% to 8%.
Okay. Sure, sir. Lastly, like, on the passive side, now we are in the industry, we are seeing that all of the major players are like, rolling out their new products in this segment. Also there are, you know, recent announcement, like a new player is going to come up in the industry, as well as newer industry participants are also going to focus on this segment. How are we, looking to maintain our leadership in this segment going ahead, like over the next, three to five years?
I think the only thing we will continue executing. I think that's the only thing we can say. I think the market has built our strength. I think we will continue. I think we have a good product suite. We have stated in past also, we will not be launching NFO just for the sake of launching NFOs. I think till the time we feel that there's a need for that in the, our portfolio and also in the investor portfolio. You saw last full year, I was stating that we've not launched any NFO. I think the only answer I can give is, I think our approach will be to launch funds which are scalable. The focus will be to continue executing well. That's the only thing will be my strategy.
Sure, thank you. Thank you for the answer, sir.
Thank you. Participants, if you have questions, please press star and one. The next question comes from the line of Madhukar Ladha from Nuvama Wealth Management. Please go ahead, sir.
Hi, am I audible?
Yeah.
Hi. Good evening, you know, congratulations on good numbers, particularly in a difficult operating environment, some of the operating parameters are actually doing well, and they're looking good. First thing, sir, on the admin and other OpEx, I think there's a pretty big jump on a year-over-year basis over here, also on a quarter-over-quarter basis, there has been some increase over there. Some color on what is driving this and what should we expect for the year?
Second, you know, on the regulatory aspect, you know, maybe you could throw some light on what the industry has, what industry representations have gone to the regulator, and, you know, what do you see happening from here, if you're comfortable in discussing that? Yeah.
Madhukar Ladha, I'll take the second question first and give it back to Pradeep for the other on the admin expenses. I think as far as the regulatory changes are concerned, I think as you are aware, I think as it's been in media, I think we saw a paper which had come in May, consultation paper, and after that in media, as you would have heard. There is a new consultation paper expected anytime. I think while I think there have been various consultations, but I would not like to speculate, I think I'll rather wait for the new consultation paper to come, and I think it should be, and it may come soon, and I think it's better to have this discussion after that, because otherwise it will just be speculation.
I think regarding the first question on admin, I think I'll request Pradeep to please answer.
Madhukar, you know, from the sequence or from the corresponding quarter last year, you know, there has been a jump. Broadly, you know, I'll divide it into three parts. One is, you know, obviously, there has been an inflationary cost adjustment to whatever running routine cost what we have. The second part is that in terms of the other non-discretionary costs, we have seen some savings, you know, because we keep working on that. We have been maintaining that. Look, there are, there are scopes for further efficiencies, so we keep working on it, and we've seen some, you know, positive development there.
you know, this quarter, if you would have seen that, you know, we have actually increased our discretionary spend significantly, and, you know, we have gone and, you know, for our brand building purposes, we have considerably spent on our marketing activity. because of this discretionary spend, you know, you'll see our expenses are higher as compared to, you know, previous quarter. as regards to the, you know, corresponding quarter, it is a function of two things. One is that, you know, the inflationary spend, the inflationary increase, plus the discretionary spend.
understood.
These, you know, these discretionary spend actually are more, you know, we see more as an investment for the future growth. You know, that, you know, currently, as you mentioned, that our performance is doing good, and at this point of time, you know, it impacts that if you go out and, you know, go to the market, and have more visibility around.
Got it. Just 1 data keeping question. Can you give me a closing AUM, category-wise, equity, debt, liquid, and ETF?
Closing AUM. Okay, one second.
Sir, Madhukar, you want the quarterly average AUM, right?
No, closing AUM.
Yeah. you know, the total, including equity arbitrage, is about INR 150,000 crore. Debt, including the trustees, is INR 77,000 crore. Liquid is INR 31,600 crore. ETF is INR 75,000 crore. All together, as of June end, it was INR 325,000 crore.
Got it. Thank you, and all the best.
Thank you.
Thank you. Participants, if you have questions, please press star and 1. The next question is from the line of Mohit from BOB Capital.
Yeah. Yeah, thanks for the opportunity. If you look at the debt, you know, QAUM, I think it has risen by around INR 105 billion. I just wanted to know which teams we saw the maximum inflow?
This is Ashwin here. Most of the debt side, most of the money has come at the shorter end of the curve. Most of the money has come in ultra short-term scheme. There was some lag effect that had happened because when in March end, the tax benefits from debt were taken away. We got, the industry got some INR 50,000 crore at March end. The impact of that on average basis, was added to the overall debt AUM in Q1.
All right. In liquid, I mean, you mentioned, I think so just wanted to know your outlook for the rest of the year?
Terms of flow?
Yeah. No, on the, on the overall AUM, I mean, liquid, we saw, you know, declining from around INR 390 billion to INR 357 billion, sequentially.
you know, in the first quarter, we've seen both overnight and liquid funds have gained in AUMs, okay. Vis-a-vis Q4. you know, we don't see too much of a change from what's happened really in Q1. It will be patronized mostly by institutional investors. maybe plus minus 5-6%. Not too much variance there.
All right. All right. Thanks, and wish you the best.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Abhijith from Kotak Securities.
Yeah, hi. Couple of questions. Firstly, just going back to the comment on market share. If you could give some color on channels, in the sense which channels have come back strongly for you, and where do you see the funds are still under index? Second one, on the similar line, is the soft close on the small cap, do you see that reversing any of the gains that we have seen in the last one or two quarters in terms of SIP creation or overall market share improvements?
Yeah, I believe this is Abhijit here. First part, I'll take it up. With regard to, the, you know, what is contributing to the growth in market share, as we also did mention in the opening commentary, that both retail and HNI, there has been a growth, and we are also getting growth happening from the equity market. Primarily, these segment of clients are taken through by most of the mutual fund distributors, both on the as well as IFAs, you know, the banks and wealth counters. I think the equity AUM also is growing for us. We have these distributors, you know, giving us higher market share, and the client base is also retail and HNI, which is growing for us.
The other side is our SIP book is also increasing, which is again, very, very fragmented. It is coming through digital, it is coming through, you know, the retail distributors, who are contributing, our SIP numbers across India. That trend is very, very fragmented and distributed. That's the answer to the first part. Second question is on small cap. That's the one category where we had, we have leadership. We feel that even though we have reduced or restricted the flows to a particular limit of 5 lakh, the best part is our SIP book in the entire small cap category, small cap flow is of almost 50%.
As of today, we have 50% of our flows coming through SIP, which will continue to grow. Even though there will be some impact on lump sum flows, which has been made structural from our side, it is from an investor interest point of view, we have taken this decision. What we find is there is a definite flow coming into other categories. Hopefully, you know, even if we have a dent for one or two months, going forward, the other categories will take care of the flows and the mix. I hope I answered your question.
ul. Secondly, just again, on the channel front, in terms of the commission payouts where we are operating today, is there... I mean, how do you see us in terms of comparison to other players on most of the large channels? Do you see any, you know, risk of having to increase payout numbers on any of the channels? Is there potential to, you know, reduce payout on any of the channels? Any way we can improve profitability on the fast-selling products that we have today
Abhijit, I'll take this question from this side. I think broadly, we keep evaluating brokerages regularly. One thing as a stated policy, we have always said, we would like to run a profitable business, and we would not like to run up the market share at the entire brokerages. I think our approach will be the right mix. Can there be scope to decrease or increase brokerages? I think this would depend on market dynamics. One thing is very clear, that we will not be running up the market share.
Got it. Just on that line, if you can also give some numbers on incremental versus book deals, on the equity side.
So, you know, we, this is data which we have, you know, not been sharing it so far. But as I mentioned to you, that look, post the 2019 circular. Earlier it used to be a flat rate in terms of the upfront plus trail. Post 2019 circular, what we have done is we have entered, you know, in terms of a sharing formula. So, for the banking and the large distributors, it works out to be about, you know, as a thumb rule, about 70% sharing. For the, you know, the NDs and, you know, other partners, it works to about 65%-70%.
For the IFAs, you know, it is typically around 55%-60% sharing. This is our thumb rule. What we have done is we have further categorized them. Tactically, you know, for certain products and certain, you know, geographies, you know, we work and we have given some flexibility to our RMs, you know, to work that out. To share with you know, that look, you know, if you see, if I take away the large partners, you know, which is, you know, the AMFI-defined large partners, while for the industry, you know, the large partners contributes almost like 75%-80% or, you know, in some cases, 85%-90% of their AUM.
In our case, if I remove all the large partners, yet, you know, 40% of my business comes from the very small partners. You know, that says that, look, you know, in terms of the unit economics, you know, we have a slight advantage because, you know, the sharing proportion with them is the lowest.
Got it. Second one is just on the other extreme. When you look at ETFs, it's one area where Nippon seems to have a pretty much as very strong presence versus peers. Just generally, you know, what has helped create this level of liquidity and scale for us, which has sort of sustained, and keeps sustaining, quarter after quarter? Some comment or some understanding here will be helpful.
Abhijit, I think, Sandip this side. I think, yes, I think we've been an early believer, I think, in ETF, and we've always believed that, I think we should, we run a business, we should have a diversified portfolio and let investors make a choice whether it's active or passive or ETF. We were, if you were to go back in 2017, and then we acquired this business from Goldman, but since then, I think we've been building it up. Unlike mutual funds, ETF business is a little different. Typically, a lot of investors will try to, when we invest in mutual funds, to diversify in four, five mutual funds. But in ETF, I think you don't have to diversify because one portfolio takes everything. I think the first mover advantage is helping us.
What happens, what compounds further is, you know, the more investors come, the more liquidity it creates. The more liquidity it creates, it becomes easy for more investors to come and also to redeem. Which leads to a lower tracking error, leads to a lower impact cost, both at buying and selling. I think this is chicken and egg. I think more investors add to the liquidity. More liquidity adds to more new investors coming in. The fact that we have 61% of the industry investors investing with us is, I think it's now a good, a well-established business. I think now market, you know, depending on how things go, I think we'll see.
Overall, we believe, unlike mutual funds, where investors will, you know, always diversify into different mutual fund schemes, in ETF, they do not tend to. They tend not to diversify.
Got it. That's helpful. Just a follow-up here would be, I mean, of the overall ETF AUM, if you can just give a broad mix of how much is coming from, you know, retail, HNI, right, rather than institutional, and whether that mix has sort of, kept improving, over the last two, three quarters.
Yeah, I think we won't be able to give the exact numbers because even we don't get those numbers. I think our pulse tells us, I mean, the institutional investors, HNIs used to come. The fact today we have maybe about 9 million investors, new investors, retail investors have also started coming in. We won't be having the exact percentage. The way I see it is from a volume point of view, AUM point of view, it could be still concentrated towards HNIs, family offices, and institutional investors. The number of new investors coming into the ETF is very fast. It's actually maybe coming faster than even the mutual fund industry.
last one, on ETF is, are you seeing a trend where people are creating SIPs on ETFs? That will be the last question.
I think we will not come to know, because what happens, I think they trade on the exchange, you know, whether they're doing an SIP or coming, you know, that's something we don't come to know as a manufacturer. Interest transactions, in the transactions are increasing, interest is increasing, and we believe, I think there are clearly a different set of investors. The set of investors who want to do SIP through our active funds, and there are investors who want to do SIP, whether some could be doing it directly into stocks or somebody is going by coming through ETFs. Definitely transactions are increasing.
Okay, great. Thanks a lot.
Thank you, Abhijit. Participants, if you have questions, please press star and one. We have our next question from the line of Gaurav Jani from Prabhudas Lilladher. Please go ahead.
Yeah, thanks. Firstly, sir, just want to clarify, the 20% market share that you mentioned in net flows, this would be for Q1 of 2024?
Yeah. Yes. Yes, please.
Sure. What would be the number for, you know, equity plus balance put together?
Equity plus balance together.
Yeah.
This number is for equity and balance together.
Okay, the 20% is for equity and together.
Yeah, equity and balance together.
... Understood. Perfect. Secondly, wanted to check on the yields rank, right? While yields, money yields have gone down by about 2.5 basis points on a quarter-over-quarter basis, how has equity yield sort of behaved on a quarterly basis? Were they up, were they stable, or, you know, how should we look at it?
No. See, we have been, saying that, look, you know, over the period of time, every year you will see 3 to 4 basis points squeeze on the equity AUMs. you know, for the 3 reasons which we have been maintaining, that look, 1, because the sizing increases, you know, 2, because of the old money get replaced, the, you know, getting replaced by the new money. From the, you know, the mix again is changing because now in equity, again, you have index funds also contributing. Because of the these reasons, you know, there has been a compression about 3 to 4 basis points, that we believe for some more time because of the industry dynamic, you know, may continue.
Sure. Thanks a lot. I was just trying to understand whether, you know, because I believe there was some bonus also this quarter, which led to a decline in yields. I was just trying to understand whether equity yields were stable or better versus the previous quarter.
Another reason is that, you know, obviously the B30 incentive has been taken off, obviously, you know, earlier the smaller distributor had this advantage coming from B30, beyond B30 cities. obviously that gets taken away and, you know, from a manufacturer perspective, to keep them motivated and incentivized, you know, you have to increase the yield. You have to increase the brokerages on those parts. obviously, that marginal impact is likely to be seen, you know, on that front also. We are waiting for the new regulations, and let's see what comes out in it.
Understood. Lastly, you know, in terms of equity market share, right? We are, I mean, we have obviously been, you know, increasing our share in net flows, number 1, plus we are probably in the top 3 consistently in terms of performance. When do you actually see, you know, the needle swing in terms of equity market share?
Marginally, it has already happened. I would ask Sandip to just add on to it.
Well, I think broadly, like we mentioned, I think both the business, we are trying to build a business that is, you know, cautiously and sort of sustainable. Our focus remains more on SIPS than lump sum, I think our past experience tells us, I think lump sum can immediately give you increase in market share. I think whenever the markets are volatile, that's the first, that's the area which moves out first. I think we are not chasing market share. I think we are trying to do all things which are right, as with the performance being there, brand positioning. I think we are getting a very high % of SIPs now going forward, and we believe that the lag effect, that will get reflected in our equity market share also.
Understood, sir. Just to follow up, any target market share that you're looking at, in equity or YOY, I mean?
As long as it's profitable growth for us, we will continue. We don't want to put a number to it. Our focus will remain sustainable and profitable. That's going to be the mantra as we grow our business.
Okay. Thanks. Thanks a lot. Let you come up.
Thank you. As there are no further questions, I would now like to hand the conference over to the management for closing comments.
Look, thank you everyone for participating in the call. Thanks Kotak for holding this conference so far. Thank you.
Thank you. On behalf of Kotak Securities Limited, that concludes this conference. Thank you for joining us, and you may now disconnect your lines.