Angel One has around 52% share in commodity market trade: Prabhakar Tiwari

“Our commodity market share is around 52%. Clearly, in commodities – which is a growing sector and we charge for commodity trades – we are in a very dominant position,” says Prabhakar Tiwari, Chief Growth Officer, Angel One

You have reported fabulous growth in daily orders and client acquisitions. Do you see client base numbers going up every month? I guess a lot is going to depend on which way the market heads?
We have been keeping our numbers steady even when the market was shrinking till three-four months back. In fact, that is the time when we were gaining market share as far as monthly acquisition numbers were concerned. At some stage, we were at 20% market share but when the market started shrinking, we went to 23% market share and then 25% market share.

The market has crossed certain milestones; there are overall 10 crore demat accounts in the country. However, this is just the start. We have got the benefit of Covid. Today for Angel, the total client base is around 1.12 crore or 11.2 million which is roughly 180% growth over last year. This is the kind of growth which has been accomplished in a non-Covid year.

If I talk about monthly numbers, we have seen month-on-month growth of 29%. Our acquisition for August was around 0.44 million. This is a secular trend. There could be minor setbacks, A lot of these things can be explained by the way our market has held up against global onslaught, high inflation, all the geopolitical instability and multitude of other factors. With the technology coming in and the new generation getting more educated about the market and with great consumer facing companies getting listed in the market, I am sure the number of demat accounts would reach 20 crore soon.

The derivative number has gone up but has your brokerage also gone up in proportion because in derivatives while the numbers look strong, the brokerage rates now are highly competitive?
The number of orders have gone up by 9% month on month. Year on year, it is roughly a 45% jump on number of orders we have seen and if I talk about Angel’s ADTO, at overall level, there is a month on month growth of 20%, in F&O there is a growth of 20%, in cash there is a growth of 22% and in commodity 24%. All these numbers are telling us that the revenue side of the story for at least for Angel is very healthy.

If you have to compare the last peak in January or February versus the current scenario,, has the business gone higher?
Yes we have been doing much better, The revenue side is looking very strong and we have gained market share when the market was shrinking. Somewhere, being a fintech broker, being a technology-oriented company, our efficiencies are showing up. We are able to scale up at a much lower cost. Our CAC is much lower and we are able to get a payback within two quarters.

Since you talked about the market share gain, could you give us the latest figure in terms of what your market share is in the various segments? How is the cost of acquisition of clients moving because that was one thing that the Street was watching very keenly?
If I talk about overall equity, our market share as per our latest published information is 21.5%, our F&O market share is 21.6%, our cash market share is around 14% and our commodity market share is around 52%. Clearly, in commodities, which is a growing sector and we charge for commodity trades, we are at a very dominant position.

Can you talk a bit more about the commodity segment? What kind of increase in retail participation have we seen?
I would not have the specifics on the client base movement. However, what I can tell you is that the interest has gone up and we are seeing a lot of participation in our platform and also it is there because we have increased our advisory and coverages in commodity as a segment.

Also, CAC for us is very attractive because we have multi-focussed channels which allows us to play as per the market sentiment and manage our CAC in a more efficient manner.

Can you give us an indicative number for client acquisition? What is the cost of that client and how soon will that client become profitable?
We do not share CAC information in public domain but I can tell you that within two quarters, we are able to get payback. So we are able to 100% recover the cost of our customer acquisition.

Do you think you will be able to grow irrespective of the market condition? In a volatile or a subdued market like in the months of May and June, what happened to your growth?
We continue to grow. There was a drop in our numbers during those months and also there was not much drop in our numbers and we gained market share on monthly numbers. In CDSL our market share went up from 20% to 23% and then to 25%. So we were gaining market share.