Brokerage blues: Top 10 players shed over 10% active users in 2025
SEBI’s F&O crackdown and lackluster markets trigger a retail retreat, leaving only a few bank-backed and tech-focused players in the green.
Active client bases in India’s brokerage industry shrunk significantly in 2025, with the top 10 players collectively seeing a double-digit decline in activity.
According to NSE data, the top 10 stock brokerages, which together account for nearly 80% of the market, had 3.57 crore active users in December 2025. This was a 10.3% decline from 3.98 crore active users in January 2025.
The number of active users across brokerage platforms fell 10.7%, dropping from 5.02 crore in January 2025 to 4.48 crore by December. This was a clear reversal from 2024, when active users grew 31.15%, rising from 3.82 crore in January to 5.01 crore a year later.
The data signals a cooling period for retail participation after a spell of exuberance, impacting even the most dominant market leaders.
While the downturn was across the board, Upstox Securities emerged as the biggest loser among the top tier; its active user base eroded by 27.3%, falling from nearly 28.59 lakh in January to just over 20.78 lakh by year-end.
The industry’s two largest heavyweights were not immune to the trend either. Zerodha, the discount broking pioneer, saw a steep decline of 15.2%, ending the year with 68.52 lakh active users, down from 80.82 lakh users.
While Groww maintained its lead as the largest broker by volume, it still shed 8.1% of its active base, dropping to 1.21 crore users from 1.32 crore users in January. Notably, Groww and SBICAP were the only players in the top 10 to gain users during the final three months of the year.
The Groww management attributes this recent resurgence of user growth to a revitalised IPO (initial public offering) market, which acted as a primary catalyst for reactivating dormant accounts. High-profile listings in the last quarter—including LG Electronics India, Meesho, and Groww’s own public debut—sparked a significant wave of renewed investor interest.
However, the overall retreat of Indian retail investors in 2025 was primarily driven by regulatory tightening and lacklustre market conditions that made active trading significantly harder and less profitable. The most decisive factor was SEBI’s aggressive crackdown on speculative trading, which introduced stricter F&O (futures & options) norms, including higher margin requirements, increased entry barriers based on income, and the removal of weekly expiries.
Amid the sea of red, a few players in the top 10 managed to grow their active client base. State Bank of India’s SBICAP Securities posted the strongest growth in the top 10, adding nearly 15% through the year to reach 11.38 lakh users in December 2025. Similarly, ICICI Securities bucked the trend with a modest gain of nearly 4%.
Notably, ChrysCapital-backed Raise Securities (Dhan) continued its upward trajectory with a solid growth of 2.5%, ending the year with 9.84 lakh active users.
Outside the traditional top 10, the ‘new age’ brokerage landscape showed extreme divergence in performance. Paytm Money was the standout performer in this segment, delivering a massive 22.4% jump in active users, growing from roughly 6.91 lakh to 8.46 lakh.
New entrant PhonePe Wealth (Share.Market) also struggled significantly and recorded a 27.3% drop in activity as its user base fell from 3.41 lakh to 2.48 lakh.
Bengaluru-based bootstrapped brokerage Fyers Securities also saw a decline, contracting by 18.2% with users dropping from 2.47 lakh to 2.02 lakh.
Another prominent fintech player, INDmoney (operating as Indstocks Private Limited), also faced a challenging year. The platform saw its active user count decrease from 8.19 lakh in January to 6.78 lakh by December, representing a decline of 17.2%.
Edited by Swetha Kannan