Groww dethrones Zerodha as India's largest stockbroker with 66.3 lakh clients

Groww surpasses Zerodha in active clients, but Zerodha leads in revenue.

Groww has overtaken Zerodha to become India's largest stockbroker with a substantial 66.3 lakh active clients, surpassing Zerodha's 64.8 lakh, as per NSE data.

In March 2021, Groww had only 7.8 lakh active clients.

This surge represents remarkable growth for Groww. In March 2021, Zerodha had 34 lakh active customers while Groww had only 7.8 lakh, as per a report by Moneycontrol.

NSE classifies active investors as those who execute at least one trade in a year.

Despite this growth in the number of users, Zerodha continues to dominate in terms of revenue, reporting a fivefold revenue compared to Groww.

Nithin Kamath's online stock broking platform, disclosed a 39 per cent increase in profit after tax (PAT) to ₹2,907 crore for the financial year ending on March 31, 2023. This is a substantial rise from the ₹2,094 crore PAT reported in the previous fiscal year. The company's revenues also surged by 38.5 per cent to reach ₹6,875 crore in FY23, up from ₹4,964 crore the year before.

In contrast, Groww's parent company, Nextbillion Technology Private Limited, reported a revenue of ₹1,294 crore in FY23. The company also recorded a net profit of ₹73 crore.

As of the end of September, the country had roughly 12.97 crore demat accounts. However, data from the NSE indicates that only 3.34 crore Indians actively engaged in trading on the exchange at least once a year.

Kamath had attributed the primary reason for the increase in Zerodha's revenue and profitability over the last three years to huge interest in the markets, especially in the futures and options (F&O) segment.

While the trading activity in F&O has increased significantly, the total number of people trading F&O is still not that large. Overall, 45 lakh Indians traded once a year last year in F&O, he had written in a blogpost.