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There is a growing interest in mutual funds among the online community, says a study conducted by ViziSense, an online audience measurement platform. The aim of the study was to gain insights into online user's adoption of mutual funds as a category online, by studying the online traffic in the mutual fund houses' official Web site as well as other financial Web sites.
The information most sought after was the Net Asset Value (NAV) of schemes on both the fund house Web sites as well as the financial sites. According to the report, the annual trend of usage of these sites showed that the demand for NAVs and information around Tax Saving Schemes show a huge jump in the last financial quarter (January-March 2011), in line with the tax planning efforts of individuals before the end of the financial year.
Traffic data
The fund house which saw the maximum traffic was UTI Mutual Fund with 5.54 lakh users. Reliance Mutual Fund experienced the second highest traffic at 1.65 lakh and HDFC Mutual Fund at 1.43 lakh.
According to the findings of the report, Moneycontrol saw, in March 2011, three lakh users who were specifically looking for information on mutual funds. Rediff money saw the second highest traffic followed by the Association of Mutual Funds India Web site. The total size of this category of online users (those looking for information on mutual funds) was 13 lakh, about 2 per cent of the total online population.
To measure user interest
“The aim of the study was to measure the size and interest of users around this category and while a penetration of 2 per cent of users shows great online interest within this category, it also holds tremendous potential for mutual fund companies to do more with this medium,” said Mr Amit Bhartiya, General Manager, ViziSense.
“The Indian mutual fund industry has seen low penetration from retail investors. With over 50 per cent of online users above the age of 25 and with an annual household income of over Rs 5 lakh for almost 25 per cent of the users, we believe that the online population is a great target fit for mutual funds,” said Mr Bhartiya.
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