If the assets under management (AUM) is a good barometer of the clout of a fund, it does not say too much about the retail spread  . That is captured better by the folios. Now, folios are unique account numbers that are unique to each AMC. If you have mutual fund investments across 5 AMCs, then you typically have 5 folios at the minimum. There are multiple folios for  each person, so even folios are not a good barometer of unique  investors. But folios are the closest to measuring retail participation in MFs. 

For example, in 2014, the total number of mutual fund folios were at 3.95 Crore. In the last 11 years, the number of folios has grown 6.3 times to 24.89 Crore. Clearly, that is a lot of retail appetite for mutual funds and that trend also gels with the growth of Gen-X and Gen-Z participation in mutual funds. While a yoy growth in folios shows a secular trend, the MOM growth in folios gives the short-term trend of folios.  That is what we focus on here. 

Here is a quick macro picture of how folios have grown across broad categories of funds 

Data Source: AMFI 

Clearly, the overall growth in mutual fund folios has been driven by open ended funds; with close-ended funds seeing folio depletion. Within the fund categories, the passive funds were the most popular as measured  by growth in folios MOM. Debt funds, surprisingly, ranked in second place, albeit on a much smaller base of investors.
 

Here is a quick look at how the folios moved between July 2025 and August 2025 in the case of the debt funds in India. 

 Data Source: AMFI 

 The momentum of folios growth is visible largely at the short end of the duration curve, which shows a rising interest among retail and HNI investors to park funds in debt-oriented short-term funds. Overall folio growth for the debt funds segment was at 1.26%. 

Here is a quick look at how the folios moved between July 2025 and August 2025 in the case of the equity funds in India.  

 Data Source: AMFI 

Interestingly, the fund categories that got the best flows, are also the ones seeing the best folio growth MOM. The theme continues to be a combination of alpha and diversified allocation, and that has played out in folio growth too. 

Here is a quick look at how the folios moved between July 2025 and August 2025 in the case of the hybrid funds in India. 

 Data Source: AMFI 

 Most of the hybrid funds seeing the best folio growth in August were the strategic asset allocation funds. The one exception is arbitrage funds, which is more about the shift from liquid funds due to the favorable tax treatment for arbitrage funds. 

Here is a quick look at how the folios moved between July 2025 and August 2025 in the case of passive funds in India.  

Data Source: AMFI 

As a category, passive funds saw a sharp revival with the best folio growth MOM. Index ETFs have been supported by NFOs, while gold ETFs have been supported by the growth in gold prices to relentless highs. Passive funds have low dispersion in folio growth. 

Folio growth in passive funds has been much better than active funds, which is a signal that markets may again be gravitating towards passive. Jio Blackrock may be helping the process.