In the first half of the year, the number of ETF issuances reached a record high for the same period, and public fund institutions are in fierce competition, set to usher in heavyweight innovative products.

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

In recent years, the domestic on-exchange ETF market has entered a fast track of rapid development. While the number of products and management scale have steadily risen, competition in the public fund industry has continued to intensify. With regulatory support for 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 investing and enter a new stage of high-quality development where passive and active strategies coexist.

Number of issuances in the first half of the year hits a record high for the same period

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

According to Wind data, as of June 29, 2026, a total of 184 new ETFs were established this year, with a combined issuance scale of 20k yuan. Compared with the same period last year, the number of issuances has set a new historical 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 densely deploying in sub-sectors 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 in tandem, continuously enriching the product matrix to cover diversified asset allocation needs.

Currently, ETFs cover all categories including broad-based, industry-themed, bond, and cross-border, and have grown into standardized allocation tools for diversified investing 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布局 in the ETF track. From the perspective of fund managers, leading institutions still dominate, with 16 institutions including China Asset Management, E Fund, Huatai-PineBridge, Guotai Asset Management, GF Fund, Southern Fund, Boshi Fund, and Harvest Fund having scales 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 designs.

Intense competition among public fund institutions

Entering 2026, the domestic ETF market has experienced historic changes within the year: the rankings of top managers have shifted multiple times. On June 3 this year, E Fund surpassed China Asset Management for the first time, changing the position of the ETF "No. 1" that had been held for 7 years. After 11 trading days, China Asset Management returned to the ETF "No. 1" throne.

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

In the top tier, Guotai Asset Management follows with 577.92B yuan, and Huatai-PineBridge with 355.23B yuan. Seven other leading public fund companies, including GF, Southern, Boshi, and Harvest, have ETF management scales exceeding 200 billion yuan.

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

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

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

In 2025, firms such as First Seafront Fund, Xinyuan Fund, Great Wall Fund, and Industrial Securities Global Fund made their initial ETF product deployments. In March this year, Industrial Securities Global Fund also filed for the Industrial Securities CSI 100 Value ETF.

Additionally, after a 14-year gap, Bocom Schroders issued an ETF again—the Bocom Schroders CSI Smart 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 Anticipation

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 exchanges issued business guidelines for 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 5 years of active equity public fund management experience, an average scale of no less than 10 billion yuan over the past 3 years, no major illegal or irregular records, and the first product development must pass a special exchange inspection.

According to 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, 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 in the entire market exceeded 4 trillion yuan, with more than 4,900 products.

"Active ETFs have been a key focus for 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 Boshi Fund. Compared with traditional active management funds, active ETFs mainly generate trading commissions when traded on the secondary market, with overall fee levels typically lower than the subscription and redemption fees of traditional active funds. Moreover, the trading mechanism is convenient and more efficient. Therefore, in the future, active ETFs are expected to have a substitution effect on active funds.

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 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 the session, with capital turnover efficiency higher than that of off-market funds. Daily disclosure of holdings significantly improves transparency, making it easier to track fund operations and reduce style drift. Overall fees may be lower than off-market active management products, reducing holding costs. By enriching allocation categories, both retail investors and long-term institutional investors can flexibly allocate, balancing the pursuit of excess returns with liquidity needs, optimizing the space for public asset selection.

Zeng Fangfang, Head of Public Fund Product Operations at 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 gain new on-exchange sales channels, reducing holding costs, pushing the industry from "scale expansion" to "investment research value output." In the long run, off-market active funds with moderate turnover and balanced stock selection will gradually become "on-exchange," while high-confidentiality, high-turnover strategies will remain off-market, forming a layered development pattern between on-exchange and off-market.

For investors, active ETFs bring three opportunities. First, improved trading efficiency: continuous bidding and real-time buying/selling during the session eliminate the waiting period for off-market redemptions, allowing flexible position adjustments in volatile markets, combining the excess returns of active stock selection with the high liquidity of ETFs. Second, cost and transparency benefits: management fees are usually lower than off-market active funds, with no subscription/redemption service fees; daily holdings disclosure allows investors to track industry and individual stock exposure in real time, avoiding issues of style drift and information opacity in traditional active funds. Third, enriched asset allocation tools: ordinary investors can one-stop deploy 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 concentration risk from 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 fund manager's research capabilities to mine excess returns in sub-sectors like hard technology and dividends, reducing the difficulty of stock selection.

Article by Xu Nannan, Edited by Xu Nan

(Editor: Xu Nannan)

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