In the first half of the year, ETF issuance numbers reached an all-time high for the period, as public fund institutions engage in intense competition, ushering in major innovative products.

184, a record high for the same period in history.

In recent years, China's onshore ETF market has entered a fast track of rapid development. While the number of products and management scale have steadily increased, competition in the public fund industry has continued to intensify. With regulatory support for the launch of active ETFs on the Shanghai and Shenzhen stock exchanges, the domestic ETF industry is about to officially bid farewell to the era of purely passive investing and enter a new stage of high-quality development where passive and active strategies coexist.

First-half issuance reaches record high for the same period

Since 2023, ETFs have experienced leapfrog growth, starting from a total scale of 2 trillion yuan. By the end of 2025, the total scale of ETFs in China had exceeded 6 trillion yuan, with 1,381 products, ranking first in Asia and becoming a core tool for capital markets to serve residents' wealth management.

According to Wind data, as of June 29, 2026, a total of 184 new ETFs were established during the year, with a combined issuance scale of 20k yuan. Compared with the same period last year, the number of issuances hit a record high for the first half of the year.

From the perspective of issuance structure, industry-themed ETFs have become the main driver of expansion, with fund companies intensively laying out niche tracks such as hard technology, high-end manufacturing, resource cycles, and low-volatility dividends. At the same time, innovative ETFs in bonds, cross-border, and commodities have also expanded simultaneously, continuously enriching the product matrix to cover diversified asset allocation needs.

Currently, ETFs cover full-category tracks including broad-based indices, industry themes, bonds, and cross-border investments, and have grown into standardized allocation tools for diversified investment in the A-share market.

In fact, in response to the continuously expanding market demand for ETFs in recent years, major fund management companies have accelerated their layout of the ETF track. From the perspective of fund managers, leading institutions still dominate. Sixteen institutions, including China Asset Management, E Fund, HuaTai-PineBridge Fund, Guotai Asset Management, GF Fund, Southern Asset Management, Bosera Asset Management, and Harvest Fund, each have a scale exceeding 60k yuan.

At the same time, small and medium-sized fund companies have achieved differentiated development by focusing on niche tracks and innovative product design.

Fierce competition among public fund institutions

In 2026, the domestic ETF market has undergone historical changes: the rankings of top managers have shifted multiple times. On June 3 this year, E Fund surpassed China Asset Management for the first time, ending the latter's seven-year reign as the No. 1 ETF manager. After 11 trading days, China Asset Management returned to the top spot.

According to Wind data, as of June 29, China Asset Management's total ETF management scale across all categories reached 64.78B yuan, with a non-currency ETF scale of 578.04B yuan. E Fund's total ETF management scale across all categories reached 577.92B yuan, with a non-currency ETF scale of 577.92B yuan.

Among the top tier, Guotai Asset Management (577.92B yuan) and HuaTai-PineBridge Fund (355.23B yuan) followed closely, while seven other leading public fund ETF managers, including GF Fund, Southern Asset Management, Bosera Asset Management, and Harvest Fund, each had a management scale exceeding 200 billion yuan.

It is worth mentioning that behind the strong growth of the ETF scale in the past two years, the ETF market is also attracting new players to actively enter the field.

In May, ABC-CA Fund simultaneously filed the CSI 300 Quality ETF and the CSI 300 Quality Index products.

In March, Orient Securities Asset Management filed its first ETF—the Orient Securities CSI Orient Securities Dividend Low Volatility ETF.

In 2025, companies such as China Universal Asset Management, Xinyuan Fund, Great Wall Fund, and Industrial Securities Global Fund all made their first ETF product deployments. In March this year, Industrial Securities Global Fund filed the Industrial Securities National Securities Value 100 ETF.

In addition, after a 14-year hiatus, Bank of Communications Schroder Fund launched an ETF again—the Bank of Communications Schroder CSI Wise Selection Shanghai-Hong Kong-Shenzhen Technology 50 ETF.

Some industry insiders pointed out that these fund companies are paving the way for active ETFs.

Active ETFs worth looking forward to

Recently, Wu Qing, Chairman of the China Securities Regulatory Commission, publicly stated support for the launch of active ETFs (exchange-traded funds) on the Shanghai and Shenzhen stock exchanges.

On the same day, both the Shanghai and Shenzhen stock exchanges issued business guidelines related to active management ETFs, standardizing naming rules for active ETFs, qualifications of managers and fund managers, product investment operations, information disclosure, and risk prevention. Among the requirements, fund managers must have more than five years of experience in active equity public fund management, with an average scale of no less than 10 billion yuan over the past three years, no major illegal or irregular records, and first-time development must pass a special inspection by the exchange.

According to data from the Asset Management Association of China, as of the end of May 2026, the total net asset value of public funds in China was 39.48 trillion yuan, setting another record high, up 17.01% year-on-year and 0.31% month-on-month.

Currently, domestic active equity funds have become increasingly mature after nearly 30 years of development. According to Wind data, as of June 29, the total scale of active equity funds across the market exceeded 4 trillion yuan, with more than 4,900 products.

"Active ETFs have been a key focus of product layout and scale growth overseas in recent years. With the widespread implementation of active ETFs in China in the future, they are expected to become an important growth driver for China's ETF scale, and the landscape and scale of China's ETFs are likely to change," said Zhao Yunyang, General Manager and Investment Director of the Index and Quantitative Investment Department at Bosera Asset Management. Compared with traditional actively managed funds, active ETFs mainly incur trading commissions when traded on the secondary market, and the overall fee rate is usually lower than the subscription and redemption fees of traditional active funds. Moreover, the trading mechanism is more convenient and efficient. Therefore, active ETFs are expected to have a certain substitution effect on active funds in the future.

For investors, active ETFs combine the trading convenience and low fee advantages of ETFs with the active management capabilities of fund managers. Active ETFs provide differentiated tool options for investors who prefer sector rotation and track investing.

Li Zhan, Chief Economist of the Research Department at China Merchants Fund, believes that active ETFs combine the pursuit of active excess returns with the advantages of on-exchange trading. Investors can trade in real-time during trading hours, and capital turnover efficiency is higher than that of off-exchange funds. Public disclosure of daily holdings greatly improves transparency, making it easier to track fund operations and reduce style drift. Overall fee rates may be lower than those of off-exchange active products, reducing holding costs. By enriching allocation categories, both retail investors and long-term institutions can flexibly allocate, balancing the pursuit of excess returns with liquidity needs, and optimizing the range of asset choices for the public.

Zeng Fangfang, Operations Manager of Public Fund Products at Shenzhen PaiPai Wang Fund Sales Co., Ltd., pointed out that daily PCF disclosure will effectively constrain style drift and force managers to standardize investment operations. Active products will gain new on-exchange sales channels, reducing holding costs and driving the industry from "scale expansion" to "investment research value output." In the long run, off-exchange active funds with moderate turnover and balanced stock selection will gradually become "on-exchange," while high-confidentiality, high-turnover strategies will remain off-exchange, forming a layered development pattern for on-exchange and off-exchange.

For investors, active ETFs bring three opportunities. First, improved trading efficiency: continuous bidding and real-time buying and selling during trading hours eliminate the waiting period for off-exchange redemptions, allowing flexible position adjustments in volatile markets, balancing the excess returns of active stock selection with the high liquidity of ETFs. Second, cost and transparency benefits: management fees are usually lower than those of off-exchange active funds, and there are no subscription or redemption service fees; daily holdings lists allow investors to track industry and individual stock exposure in real time, avoiding the problems of style drift and information opacity in traditional active funds. Third, enriched asset allocation tools: ordinary investors can one-stop allocate to professional active strategies, combining them with broad-based passive ETFs to build balanced portfolios; institutions can batch allocate multiple active ETFs to build multi-factor or multi-strategy portfolios, reducing the concentration risk of a single fund. In the long term, active ETFs are also suitable for regular investment. Retail investors do not need to research individual stocks separately and can leverage the investment research capabilities of fund managers to tap into excess returns in niche tracks such as hard technology and dividends, reducing the difficulty of stock selection.

Text/Nannan Xu Editor/Nan Xu

(Editor: Nan Xu)

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