Driven by inflows into Systematic Investment Plans (SIPs), the mutual fund industry's total assets under management rose to Rs 39.88 lakh crore in September from Rs 36.73 lakh crore in the year-ago period.
On a monthly basis, the Assets Under Management (AUM) increased marginally from Rs 39.33 lakh crore in August.
According to the latest monthly data from the Association of Mutual Funds in India (Amfi) released on Monday, the industry wide net AUM stood at Rs 38.42 lakh crore in September.
Amfi said the month also saw the highest-ever folio addition to 13.81 crore. The retail folios also touched an all-time high to 10.99 crore.
The contribution of SIPs rose to Rs 12.97 lakh crore in September, which is the highest ever, from Rs 12.69 lakh crore, Amfi said, adding the number of SIP accounts also increased to 5.84 crore.
SIP AUM stood at Rs 6.35 lakh crore with a month-on-month inflow of Rs 4,501 crore taking the total SIP AUM to Rs 6.39 lakh crore for September.
Retail AUMs (equity, hybrid, and solution-oriented schemes) stood at Rs 19.77 lakh crore while their average AUM stood at Rs 20.24 lakh crore.
Amfi CEO N S Venkatesh said SIP numbers look healthy with the highest ever contribution at Rs 12,976.34 crore in a month.
"We are hopeful that we will touch Rs 13,000 crore per month mark in the coming months."
During the past few months, the market reacted to inflationary factors and rate hikes.
However, small investors have shown consistent faith in mutual fund investments and they see SIP as wealth accumulation and wealth creation over a longer-term, he said.
Kavitha Krishnan of Morningstar India said the markets continued to witness inflows to the tune of Rs 14,099.73 crore, with the growth largely driven by the flows into sectoral/thematic funds in the reporting month.
The mid-cap category and flexicap category saw significant inflows during the month.
Another reason was the flurry of fund launches in September, especially within the thematic/sector funds category.
Despite the financial turmoil in the domestic and global markets following rate hikes by central banks along with the rupee fall, domestic investors continued to invest in the markets, leading to positive flows during the month.
This is likely indicative of investors' preference for investing during market dips.
The overall positive sentiment is also likely driven by investors' interest towards investing in the NFOs that were launched in the month, she said.
Akhil Chaturvedi of Motilal Oswal AMC said healthy growth in net equity inflows after two months of below average trend augurs well for the markets.
Arun Kumar of FundsIndia said in contrast to the declining trend of the last few months, equity MF inflows picked up sharply in September.
