The mutual funds industry is a big business globally. In the developed countries it is especially large due to the amount of investment capital available. Billions of dollars are run by fund managers on behalf of their investors. Since billions of dollars of fees are at stake, fund companies offer a variety of funds based on many categories such as growth, sector, country, region, dividend, etc. In addition, even within the same fund different classes are offered to differentiate between fee types, amount invested, type of investor, etc.
How many mutual funds exist in countries around the world?
According to the Investment Company Institute, the fund industry’s trade body, there were over 79,000 mutual funds in the world at the end of 2014. The chart below shows this number broken down by country:
Click to enlarge
Notes:
- Funds of funds are not included except for France, Italy, and Luxembourg. Data include home-domiciled funds, except for Hong Kong, the Republic of Korea, and New Zealand, which include home- and foreign-domiciled funds.
- Data Source: International Investment Funds Association
Source: Investment Company Institute
A few observations:
- Region-wise Europe has the largest number of followed by the Americas.
- Korea has the largest number of funds in the world with over 11,000 funds listed.
- The US has over 7,900 funds. This number is more than the total number of public-firms listed on the US markets.
- Among the BRICs, Brazil has more than 10 times the number of funds in India.
Download:
Data for the above chart and more (in Excel format)
Why is Australia no where on the chart. I assume they have more than New Zealand?
For some reason ICI did not have Australia when I created the chart last year. Please visit Investment Company Institute website and see if they have Australian data now.
-David