The data showed a wide divergence among major brokers. Groww added 70,119 active clients in July, taking its active client base to 13.12 million. Its share of the active client market rose to 28.88% from 28.72% in June.
Zerodha, the second-largest broker by active clients, saw its client base decline by 38,725 during the month to 6.76 million. Its market share stood at 14.88%.
Angel One remained broadly stable, adding 286 active clients to reach 6.63 million. Its market share was 14.60%.
Among other large brokers, ICICI Securities added 11,748 active clients, taking its base to 2.13 million. Upstox, however, saw a decline of 26,433 clients, with its active client base falling to 1.86 million.
Dhan added 14,166 active clients during the month, taking its base above 1.08 million. Kotak Securities added 2,546 clients to reach 1.38 million.
Several established brokers reported declines in active clients. SBI Securities saw its base fall by 47,551, while HDFC Securities lost 9,169 clients. Motilal Oswal recorded a smaller decline of 1,748 clients.
The July data points to an uneven trend across India’s broking industry. While the overall increase in active clients remained modest, individual brokers recorded sharply different gains and declines.
The active client numbers also reflect the distribution of customers across brokers, but do not by themselves indicate trading activity, revenue or profitability.
A rise or fall in active clients therefore needs to be viewed alongside other measures such as trading volumes, customer engagement and business mix.
