Emerging trends of mutual funds in India: A study across category and type of schemes

The present paper aims to bring out the recent trends in mutual fund industry in India. The emerging scenario and growth of mutual funds have been analyzed across category, sector and type of portfolio. Year-on-year percent change, compound annual growth rate (CAGR) and proportionate market share are the major tools applied for analysing growth in number of schemes, assets under management and resources mobilized. The reference period ranges from 1998–2006, i.e. period of second generation financial sector reforms. The study brings out that the mutual fund investors in India at present have as many as 609 schemes with variety of features such as dividend, growth, cumulative interest income, monthly income plans, sectoral plans, equity linked schemes, money market schemes, etc. Though both open-end and close-end schemes have registered excellent growth in fund mobilization, but currently the former category of schemes is more popular among the investors. Portfolio-wise analysis has brought that income schemes have an edge over growth schemes in terms of assets under management. Moreover UTI's share in total assets under management has come down to 11.8 percent in 2006 from 82.5 percent in 1998.