There are 1.86 crore mutual fund investors in India, with 31 per cent of the industry’s assets under management (AUM) coming from individuals with income above Rs 1 crore, the government said in reply to a question in the Lok Sabha on Monday.

The government released the statistics on the number of individual mutual fund investors based on self-declarations by them. Investors with income below Rs 5 lakh constitute 70 per cent of the investor base. However, they only account for 29 per cent of the assets of the mutual fund industry.

The government figures are substantially lower than those released by the Association of Mutual Funds in India (AMFI). According to AMFI, the number of mutual fund investors in India had doubled to 2.39 crore as of 30 June 2021 from 1.19 crore at the end of March 2017. However, the AMFI numbers may include corporates as well.

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In 2021, a rise in the number of cryptocurrency investors may have taken the investor base in the latter beyond the ground for mutual funds. According to data from a significant cryptocurrency exchange to Mint, they collectively have a user base of 3.5 crores. It is unclear how much money has sunk into cryptocurrency by Indians. The direct investor base for stocks has also increased since the covid 19 pandemic as markets rose fueled by easy monetary policy.