Upstox eyes 3-4 times growth in its customer base this year to 6-8 mn

Tiger Global-backed online brokerage Upstox on Wednesday said it is aiming a customer base of 6-8 million at the end of 2021.

This will be almost a 3-4 fold increase from the customer base of over 2 million at the end of December 2020, Upstox said in a statement.

Upstox, which was set up in 2009 by Ravi Kumar, Kavitha Subramanian and Shrini Viswanath, said it registered robust growth in terms of number of clients in last two-three years mainly due to migration of millennials to digital-native trading platforms.

The increase in the number of active traders is largely fuelled from Tier-II and Tier-III towns with a vast majority being first time investors.

According to Upstox's co-founder Ravi Kumar, the trend has only accelerated in the post-pandemic period, as more individuals and households have been looking for additional sources of income-beyond the traditional instruments.

"The stay-at-home economy is a new experience for all dmographics. It has served as a wake-up call for many millennials to think about investing in the stock market... millennials realized that getting started in the stock market is not that difficult in this digital era," he said.

Kumar, further, said 85 per cent of Upstox customers carry out daily trades through their mobile devices.

The intuitive consumer interface has also helped in bringing housewives among the first time investors in the equity markets.

Upstox has logged 5 times growth in account opening by women in 2020, compared to 2019, Kumar pointed out.

"Around 65 per cent of Upstox women customers are first-time investors, and 30 per cent are housewives, he said.

The simplicity of online trading platforms such as Upstox, with a flat-fee structure, simple interface, and hassle-free account-opening process has served as a driving force behind the entry of several first-time demat account holders.

Subramanian, co-founder of Upstox, is confident that this trend will continue, While we have 3 million customers, currently, our customer growth has been three to four times for the last three years, and we expect the run rate to continue in 2021.

Viswanath, who is one of the founders of the digital brokerage, highlighted that Upstox's chart-sharing, which is among the industry-first features, allows customers to share applied analysis and drawing with their peers with real-time data.

The Upstox Pro-web 3.0 allows high-frequency options to traders to view their order and portfolio history along with the scrip details on the charts, without having to go to their portfolio.