The number of investors in the Indian stock market has been on the rise in the last few years and while it is still a miniscule share of the country’s population, in terms of total households, a notable share is being channelled into the stock markets.
Speaking at an event organised by the Association of Investment Bankers of India (AIBI), the umbrella body of merchant bankers of the country, Ashishkumar Chauhan, MD & CEO of the National Stock Exchange (NSE), highlighted the fact that the number of unique investors in the Indian stock market is rising steadily on the back of increased penetration level of mobile phones and also the growing popularity of trading apps.
“Today we have 80 million direct investors in the stock markets. There are 80 million unique PANs and we will hopefully become 90 million soon. NSE has 160-170 million accounts but if you remove the duplication, there are 80 million unique accounts... And the numbers are increasing as most of the new investors have come in the last 2-3 years. Through mobile phones and applications, more people are now saving through the stock markets,” said Chauhan, who took over as the NSE chief in July 2022.
More importantly, he said if the number of investors is looked at in terms of the number of households, then a notable share of the households is investing money in the stock market.
“These 80 million investors are actually 50 million unique households, which is 17 per cent of India’s all households put together and they are directly investing in the Indian stock markets. And, largely their entry is through the IPO markets,” said Chauhan, who was the head of BSE before occupying the corner office at NSE.
This assumes significance as policy makers have been trying hard to channel the country’s household savings into the formal and well-regulated arena of financial investments instead of the opaque world of physical assets, especially gold and real estate.
If NSE was a country, it would have been the 20th largest in the world, he said while highlighting the number of unique investors in the market.
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