Where Is Mutual Fund SIP Money Concentrated?

WHERE CAN YOU FIND THE SIP AUM OF MUTUAL FUNDS?

Ask anyone where the SIP flows into mutual funds are going and the standard response would be they are going into equity funds. That is more of an intuitive answer. However, if you look at the numbers, it will not only ratify that point, but also tell you how much equity funds dominate the SIP flows. There are also SIPs happening on hybrid funds and passive funds, but they are just about picking up. Also, in India, while HNIs dominate investments in hybrid funds, it is the corporates that dominate investments in passive funds.

The top 10 funds by SIP AUM are all equity funds. More importantly, these top-10 funds account for 84.7% of the total SIP AUM into mutual funds. That is how strong the concentration is. Remember, today SIP AUM is nearly 20% of the overall mutual funds AUM, which is actually quite substantial.

A QUICK LOOK AT HOW THE SIP AUM NUMBERS LOOK LIKE?

The table below captures how the SIP AUM figures against the total category AUM. We have taken March 2026, the end of the last fiscal year as the benchmark, which is good enough to get a broad idea. Check the table below.

Here we have ranked the equity funds by share of SIP AUM in the total AUM of that particular category. The higher share of Category SIP share is a good barometer of retail intensity of the AUM holdings. For example, Small Cap Funds have nearly 54.7% of their AUM coming from SIPs, which shows a strong retail content. ELSS could be more out of habit as taxpayers used SIPs to plan for taxes. Mid-cap is s story similar to small caps.

The funds at the bottom are also quite interesting. Sectoral / Thematic funds have just about 27.4% of their AUM coming from SIPs, clearly showing a fall in retail interest. Similarly, multi-cap funds have seen just about 30.9% of their AUM coming from SIPs, which shows that retail investors have been preferring flexi-caps over multi-caps.

One interest inference that flows is that the retail intensity appears to be a lot stronger in the alpha generating funds like small cap funds and mid-cap funds. At the same time, retail interest has been reducing in large cap funds as evident from the falling SIP AUM. Retail investors appear to be relatively neutral towards allocation funds like multi-caps, flexi-caps, and large & mid-caps. Most investors are looking at small cap funds and mid-cap funds as a proxy for the reduced opportunities in the direct equity markets.

QUICK TAKEAWAYS FOR INVESTORS

There are 4 broad takeaways from the SIP AUM data of the top-10 fund categories.

SIP AUM is reflective of the retail intensity of the AUM. For now, the alpha funds like mid-cap funds and small cap funds are the preferred picks for retail investors.

While large cap funds are losing the fancy of retail investors, the retail interest in sectoral and thematic funds have come down substantially. They appear to prefer an alpha bet based on capitalization rather than on sectors or themes.

Mid-cap funds and small cap funds put together account for 25% of the total SIP AUM of Indian mutual funds. That shows a sharp risk taken by Indian investors on the smaller stocks outperforming the market indices.