The Indian trading markets have a "lopsided structure" when it comes to the futures & options (F&O) segment, according to Zerodha Chief Executive Officer Nithin Kamath.
Kamath pointed out that much of the turnover in the F&O market comes from a rather small chunk of investors, and that the bulk of revenues in the broking industry are derived from this market too.
"If you look at F&O turnover, around 60–70% of trading volumes come from a tiny set of investors, roughly just 1–2%. That is the lopsided structure of the Indian markets," Kamath stated in a post on X on Wednesday.
The Zerodha co-founder said that despite popular beliefs around F&O trading in India and all its problems, "it is still a very, very small market compared to almost anything else."
Despite what people think about F&O trading in India and all its problems, it is still a very, very small market compared to almost anything else. In fact, in the month of March, only about 30 lakh people traded an F&O contract. Across FY26 as a whole, only about 20 lakh people… pic.twitter.com/aZbzItQb4P
— Nithin Kamath (@Nithin0dha) April 22, 2026
He explained that, in the month of March, only about 30 lakh people traded an F&O contract.
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"Across FY26 as a whole, only about 20 lakh people traded only in F&O. If you combine people who traded in equities and F&O, that number goes up to roughly 64 lakh," Kamath highlighted.
Reiterating the small size of the market, Kamath added that in a broad sense, out of nearly 13 crore unique investors, only around 3.8 crore investors were active across cash and F&O, implying that only about 30% of investors traded "anything at all."
Pointing to the stark imbalance, the entrepreneur said that the only reason broker revenues have held up is that a small number of people are trading more.
"Pretty much the entire revenue pool of the broking industry comes from this relatively small pool of traders," Kamath underlined.
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