Buoyant on the rising markets, India’s top 10 companies by retail shareholders added a total of 400,000 investors during the three-month period ended December, with Yes Bank topping the charts for the fifth straight quarter.
The number of firms having more than 1 million retail shareholders rose to 26 from 24 on September 30, 2023, with fintech major Paytm and public sector unit NHPC crossing the milestone. Paytm had more than 1 million retail shareholders as of June 2023, but dipped below the mark in September, according to data sourced from Capitaline.
By the end of December, the total number of retail shareholders across 2,047 companies was at 163.8 million, a 2.8 rise on a quarter-on-quarter (q-o-q) basis and a 9.1% surge on a year-on-year (y-o-y) basis. For the top 10 companies (based on retail shareholder numbers), it rose 1.3% on a q-o-q basis to 30.02 million, while that on a y-o-y basis jumped by 9.1%. In the three-month period ended December, both Sensex and Nifty increased by about 11%, scaling new highs every week.
Reliance Industries (RIL), the country’s largest private sector company, recorded a 2.4% q-o-q fall in the number of retail shareholders, while HDFC Bank (down 1.3%) and LIC (down 6.4%) were the other two in the top 10 list to record a decline from September.
Yes Bank’s retail shareholders rose 2.2% to 4.91 million in the reported period, while RIL came in second with 3.49 million, followed by ITC with a total of 3.28 million shareholders. The pecking order of the top three remained unchanged as of December 2023 from that of September 30.
However, Life Insurance Corporation of India (LIC), which was at the fourth position as of September, was pushed down to seventh with a total retailer base of 2.87 million as of December end. State Bank of India moved up to the fifth position with a total of 2.98 million retail shareholders from the earlier seventh position.
On a y-o-y basis, LIC’s retail shareholder base fell by 14.8% to 2.87 million. The insurer, which is also the country’s largest institutional investor, was the only firm in the top 10 to record an erosion in number of retail shareholders on a y-o-y basis.