The unique investors’ base on the National Stock Exchange of India (NSE) crossed the 12-crore mark on September 23, with the latest 1 crore addition taking place in just eight months, the bourse said on Thursday.
NSE said one in four investors is a woman.
Photograph: Francis Mascarenhas/Reuters
The exchange surpassed the 11-crore mark in January this year.
“The registered investor base hit the 1 crore mark — 14 years after NSE started operations, the next 1 crore additions took about seven years, the subsequent 1 crore addition took about three-and-half years and and the next one a little over a year,” the exchange said in a statement.
In other words, it took over 25 years for the registered investor base to hit the 4 crore mark in March 2021, with the subsequent 1 crore investors being added in about 6-7 months.
The expansion of the investor base has accelerated over time driven by digitisation, greater fintech access, an expanding middle class, and supportive policy measures.
Overall, the total number of investor accounts registered with NSE stood at 23.5 crore as of September 23, 2025.
This includes all client registrations done to date.
Notably, clients can register with more than one trading member.
Further, the 12 crore registered investors have a median age of about 33 years, down from 38 years just five years ago, with nearly 40 per cent of them being less than 30 years old.
This has been accompanied by widening participation across the country.
The investor base covers 99.85 per cent of India’s pin codes.
“As of August 31, 2025, there were three states with the count of unique registered investors more than a crore, with Maharashtra leading the pack with 1.9 crore investors, followed by Uttar Pradesh with 1.4 crore investors and Gujarat, the latest entrant in this set, with 1.03 crore) investors,” NSE said.
In the current fiscal year till September 23, the benchmark Nifty 50 index has generated returns of 7 per cent, while the Nifty 500 index has delivered 9.3 per cent gain during this period.
