India’s digital investing boom enters a new phase as platforms chase wallet share over user growth: Report

India’s digital investing boom is entering a more complex phase. After years of chasing new account openings and onboarding first-time investors, investment platforms are now confronting a different challenge: how to make users invest more, diversify more, and stay engaged longer.

A new report by Redseer Strategy Consultants suggests that the country’s digital investment ecosystem is moving beyond acquisition-led growth and into a phase where monetisation will increasingly depend on deepening investor participation rather than expanding user counts.

India’s investor base is expanding rapidly, but investing habits are still evolving.

The report estimates that the average digital investor now holds a portfolio of around ₹10 lakh and invests nearly ₹3 lakh annually—indicating a relatively young investor cohort still building wealth and shaping long-term behaviour. That combination of growing balances and recurring inflows presents a significant opportunity for platforms to influence how investors allocate capital over time.

Yet despite wider access to financial products, most investors continue to remain concentrated in a handful of familiar instruments.

Why are investors still sticking to familiar products?

Mutual funds and direct equities account for nearly 80% of digital investment activity. SIP-led mutual funds dominate portfolios, followed by direct stock investing, while products such as ETFs, global equities, derivatives and digital gold continue to see limited adoption despite rising awareness.

The report argues that this behaviour reflects an investor market that is accumulating wealth but not necessarily becoming more sophisticated.

To explain this shift, Redseer categorises users into three investor profiles. “Guided Savers” form the largest group and view investing primarily as a disciplined savings habit. “Aspiring Investors” experiment selectively across products while continuing to learn. A smaller segment of “Confident Builders” actively manages portfolios and tends to respond more aggressively to market opportunities.

What will decide the next winners in digital investing?

For platforms, that segmentation changes the competitive equation.

The study finds that investors are increasingly sticky, but not because products have become indispensable. Rather, familiarity and convenience are creating inertia. Close to two-thirds of investors indicated they would not switch platforms even if offered zero brokerage, suggesting pricing alone is no longer a meaningful differentiator.

Instead, users are rewarding trust, seamless execution, a unified investing interface and intuitive design.

That may reshape how digital wealth platforms compete over the next few years. The winners, according to the report, are unlikely to be those spending the most on acquisition or offering the cheapest trades. They will be the platforms that convert passive savers into active investors—expanding wallet share through experience, product relevance and timely engagement.

India’s next investing winner, in other words, may not acquire more users. It may simply get more from the ones it already has.