New Delhi: Growing investor interest in mutual funds has led to an addition of nearly 33 lakh new folios in the first quarter of current fiscal, taking the total to all time high of 7.46 crore at the end of June.

This follows an addition of 1.6 crore investor accounts in entire 2017-18, over 67 lakh folios in 2016-17 and 59 lakh in 2015-16.

Folios are numbers designated to individual investor accounts, though an investor can have multiple accounts.

According to the data from Association of Mutual Funds in India on total investor accounts with 42 fund houses, the number of folios rose to a record 7,46,24,230 at the end of June this year, up from 7,13,47,301 at the end of March 2018, a gain of 32.77 lakh.

Over the last few years, investor accounts have increased following robust contribution from retail investors, especially from smaller towns, and huge inflows in equity schemes.

Folios in equity, equity-linked saving schemes (ELSS) grew by 26.41 lakh to 5.62 crore. Besides, folios in balanced category surged by 1.5 lakh to over 60 lakh during the period under review.

Further, folios in income funds rose by 3.6 lakh to over 1 crore.

"The increase in new folios suggests that new investors believe that mutual funds still remain one of the most promising and flexible investment products for the long term," said Harsh Jain, COO at Groww, an investment platform.

In addition, the investor awareness campaign by industry body has generated a lot of interest among investors, he added.

Overall, mutual funds have seen an infusion of Rs 1.34 lakh crore, while equity schemes alone attracted an impressive inflow of more than Rs 32,000 crore.

This inflow has helped in increasing the total assets under management to Rs 23.4 lakh crore in June-end from Rs 21.36 lakh crore at the end of March.

Mutual funds are investment vehicles made up of a pool of funds collected from a large number of investors. The funds are invested in stocks, bonds and money market instruments, among others.