The number of ETF issuances in the first half of the year hit a record high for the same period, as public fund institutions engage in fierce competition and are about to usher in a major innovative product.

184 products, setting a new record for the same period in history.

In recent years, the domestic on-exchange ETF market has entered a fast lane of high-speed development, with product numbers and management scale steadily rising while competition in the public fund industry continuously intensifies. With regulatory authorities explicitly supporting the launch of actively managed ETFs on the Shanghai and Shenzhen stock exchanges, the domestic ETF industry is about to officially bid farewell to the era of purely passive investment and enter a new stage of high-quality development where passive and active coexist.

Number of issuances in first half year sets historical record for same period

Since 2023, ETFs have experienced leapfrog development, starting from a total scale of 2 trillion yuan. By the end of 2025, the total scale of ETFs in China exceeded 6 trillion yuan, with 1,381 products, ranking first in Asia and becoming a core tool for capital market services in resident wealth management.

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

From the issuance structure, industry thematic ETFs have become the main force of expansion, with fund companies intensively deploying sub-sectors such as hard technology, high-end manufacturing, resource cycles, and dividend low volatility. At the same time, innovative ETFs in bonds, cross-border, and commodities have also expanded synchronously, with the product matrix continuously enriched to cover diversified asset allocation needs.

Currently, ETFs cover all categories including broad-based, industry thematic, bond, and cross-border, and have grown into a standardized allocation tool for diversified investment in the A-share market.

In fact, in recent years, facing continuously expanding market demand, major fund management companies have accelerated their layout in the ETF track. From the perspective of fund managers, leading institutions still dominate, with 16 institutions including China Asset Management, E Fund Management, Huatai-PineBridge Fund Management, GT Fund Management, GF Fund Management, Southern Fund Management, Boshi Fund Management, and Harvest Fund Management each having a scale exceeding 60k yuan.

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

Intense competition among public fund institutions

Entering 2026, the domestic ETF market has seen historic changes this year: the rankings of leading managers have changed multiple times. On June 3 this year, E Fund surpassed China Asset Management for the first time, changing the seven-year-long top position of the ETF "king". After 11 trading days, China Asset Management returned to the top spot of ETF "king."

Wind data shows that as of June 29, China Asset Management's full-category ETF management scale reached 64.78B yuan, and non-monetary ETF scale reached 578.04B yuan. E Fund's full-category ETF management scale reached 577.92B yuan, and non-monetary ETF scale reached 577.92B yuan.

Among the top tier, GT Fund with 577.92B yuan and Huatai-PineBridge Fund with 355.23B yuan followed closely. Seven leading public fund ETFs including GF, Southern, Boshi, and Harvest each have management scales exceeding 200 billion yuan.

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

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

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

In 2025, fund companies such as First Seafront Fund Management, Xinyuan Fund Management, Great Wall Fund Management, and China Industrial Securities Global Fund Management all deployed ETF products for the first time. In March this year, China Industrial Securities Global Fund Management also filed the China Industrial Securities Guozheng Value 100 ETF.

In addition, after a 14-year gap, BOCOM Schroders Fund Management issued an ETF again—the BOCOM Schroders CSI Zhixuan 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 expressed support for the launch of active ETFs (exchange-traded open-ended index funds) on the Shanghai and Shenzhen stock exchanges.

On the same day, both the Shanghai and Shenzhen stock exchanges issued relevant business guidelines for actively managed ETFs, standardizing the naming rules, qualifications of managers and fund managers, product investment operations, information disclosure, and risk prevention for active ETFs. Among them, requirements for fund managers include more than 5 years of experience in active equity public fund management, an average scale of no less than 10 billion yuan in the past three years, no major illegal or irregular records, and the first development must pass a special exchange inspection.

According to the disclosure of the Asset Management Association of China, as of the end of May 2026, the total net asset value of domestic public funds reached 39.48 trillion yuan, setting a new historical 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 scale of active equity funds in the entire market exceeded 4 trillion yuan, with more than 4,900 products.

"Active ETFs have been the 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 scale growth driver for China's ETFs, 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 of Boshi Fund. Compared with traditional actively managed funds, active ETFs mainly incur trading commissions when traded in the secondary market, with overall fee rates usually lower than the subscription and redemption fees of traditional active funds, and they have more convenient trading mechanisms and higher trading efficiency. 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 while leveraging the active management capabilities of fund managers. Active ETFs provide differentiated tool choices for investors who favor industry rotation and track investing.

Li Zhan, Chief Economist of the Research Department of China Merchants Fund Management, 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 the trading session, with capital turnover efficiency better than that of off-exchange funds. Public disclosure of daily holdings can significantly improve transparency, facilitate tracking of fund operations, and reduce style drift. Overall fee rates may be lower than off-exchange active management products, reducing holding costs. They enrich the allocation categories, allowing both retail investors and long-term institutions to flexibly allocate, balancing excess return pursuit and liquidity needs, optimizing the space for public asset selection.

Zeng Fangfang, Public Fund Product Operations Manager of Shenzhen PaiPai Fund Sales Co., Ltd., pointed out that daily PCF disclosure will effectively constrain style drift and force managers to standardize investment operations; active products add on-exchange sales channels, reducing holding costs, and pushing 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 strategies with high confidentiality and high turnover will remain off-exchange, forming a tiered development pattern between on-exchange and off-exchange.

For investors, active ETFs bring three opportunities. First, improved trading efficiency: continuous bidding during the session, real-time buying and selling, eliminating the waiting period for off-exchange redemptions, allowing flexible position adjustments during volatile markets, combining excess returns from active stock selection with high liquidity of ETFs. Second, cost and transparency benefits: management fees are usually lower than off-exchange active funds, with no subscription/redemption service fees; daily holdings list disclosure allows investors to track industry and individual stock exposures in real time, avoiding style drift and information opacity issues of traditional active funds. Third, enriched asset allocation tools: ordinary investors can deploy professional active strategies in one stop, combined 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 run, active ETFs are also suitable for regular investment, allowing retail investors to avoid individually researching stocks and instead leverage fund managers' research capabilities to uncover excess returns in sub-sectors like hard technology and dividends, reducing the difficulty of stock selection.

Text/Xu Nannan Editor/Xu Nan

(Editor: Xu Nan)

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