Equity now makes up nearly two-thirds of women investors’ mutual fund assets

The latest market report highlights that Equity funds have taken a much bigger place in the mutual fund holdings of women market participants during the past five years.

Equity accounted for 65% of women market participants’ mutual fund assets in March 2025, up from 40% in March 2020, according to ICRA Analytics. The report refers to these assets as “women-led AUM.”

The change was sharper than the one noted across the mutual fund industry. Equity’s share of total industry assets increased from 27% to 45% during the same five-year period.

At 65%, the equity share of women market participants’ MF assets was additionally well above the industry-wide share of 45% in March 2025. How big was the shift?

The share of equity in women-led AUM increased by 25 percentage points between March 2020 and March 2025. For the mutual fund industry overall, it rose by 18 percentage points.

The numbers show that equity has advanced a much bigger share of women market participants’ mutual fund holdings. That stated, AUM can change for two reasons: market participants may put in or withdraw money, and the value of existing investments may climb or decline with the market. The report does not separate the effect of these two factors.

“The increasing equity orientation among women market participants and participants from B30 locations points to a broadening of equity participation across both investor segments and geographies,” stated Ashwini Kumar, Senior Vice President and Head Market Data at ICRA Analytics.

In mutual fund industry data, T30 refers to the top 30 geographical locations by mutual fund AUM, while B30 covers all locations beyond them.

Smaller cities show a firm equity tilt too

The report additionally found a much elevated equity share in cities and towns beyond India’s top 30 locations.

As of July 2026, equity-oriented schemes made up 65.9% of mutual fund assets in B30 locations, compared with 39.8% in T30 cities, according to AMFI data cited by ICRA Analytics.

T30 cities still contribute a larger share of the mutual fund industry’s total assets. But among the assets coming from B30 locations, a much larger proportion is invested in equity schemes.

The B30 and T30 figures cover all market participants in these locations and are separate from the report’s data on women market participants.

Folios continued to climb during market falls

The broader equity fund data additionally reveals that the number of folios kept growing even when asset values declined.

Between February and March 2026, equity fund AUM declined from Rs 35.39 lakh crore to Rs 31.98 lakh crore. During the same month, equity folios increased from 18.12 crore to 18.27 crore.

Over five years, equity fund folios rose from 7.3 crore in August 2021 to 18.9 crore in August 2026. Equity fund AUM increased from Rs 12.3 lakh crore to Rs 39.2 lakh crore during this period.

A folio is a mutual fund account and does not represent one unique investor, as the same person can hold several folios.