Groww vs Zerodha vs Angel One vs ICICI Direct vs Upstox vs Kotak Neo vs HDFC Sky vs Dhan vs SBI Securities vs Motilal Oswal
Research date: 25 September 2026
Market-price cut-off: 24 September 2026 closing prices
Financial cut-off: FY2025-26, plus Q1 FY2026-27 where reliably available
NSE active-client cut-off: August 2026
App-data observation: September 2026
Website-traffic observation: comparable current public data unavailable; not fabricated
The most important methodological point is the one specified in the research brief: registered accounts, NSE active clients, demat accounts, app downloads and monthly active users are different metrics and should never be treated as interchangeable.
1. Executive research conclusions
The Indian brokerage market in 2026 is not one homogeneous industry. The ten firms fall into several fundamentally different business models.
Groww and Zerodha are scaled digital-first platforms. Groww is currently the much stronger customer-share gainer, while Zerodha remains extraordinarily profitable despite active-client contraction.
Angel One and Dhan are increasingly trader-led financial platforms trying to diversify beyond transaction brokerage. Angel operates at much larger scale; Dhan has unusually strong recent active-client growth but experienced a sharp FY26 profit decline.
ICICI Securities, Kotak Securities, HDFC Securities and SBI Securities benefit from bank-led distribution, customer trust, financing opportunities and cross-selling. Their NSE active-client rankings understate the economic value that can come from affluent customers, MTF, banking integration and distribution.
Motilal Oswal Financial Services is the least comparable pure broker. Its listed parent now has major asset-management, wealth-management, private-wealth and investment-book economics. Assessing it solely on brokerage market share would materially misrepresent the business.
And there has been a major structural change since many older broker-comparison articles were published:
Groww is now a listed company. ICICI Securities is no longer independently listed.
Billionbrains Garage Ventures Limited, Groww’s listed parent, trades as GROWW, ISIN INE0HOQ01053. NSE records confirm the symbol and ISIN.
ICICI Securities’ shares were delisted and cancelled on 24 March 2025. Public shareholders received 67 ICICI Bank shares for every 100 ICICI Securities shares under the scheme.
2. Corporate structure and listing status
| Platform | Actual brokerage/legal entity | Ownership / structure | Current listing status | SEBI stock-broker registration |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Groww | Groww Invest Tech Pvt Ltd | Subsidiary within listed Billionbrains Garage Ventures Ltd group | Parent listed — NSE: GROWW | INZ000301838 |
| Zerodha | Zerodha Broking Ltd | Privately held | Unlisted | INZ000031633 |
| Angel One | Angel One Ltd | Standalone diversified fintech/broker | Listed — NSE: ANGELONE; ISIN INE732I01021 | INZ000161534 |
| ICICI Direct | ICICI Securities Ltd | ICICI Bank group | Delisted 24-Mar-2025 | INZ000183631 |
| Upstox | Upstox Securities Pvt Ltd | Private group structure | Unlisted | INZ000315837 |
| Kotak Neo | Kotak Securities Ltd | Kotak Mahindra Bank group | Unlisted subsidiary | INZ000200137 |
| HDFC Sky | HDFC Securities Ltd | HDFC Bank held 94.01% at FY26-end | Unlisted subsidiary | INZ000186937 |
| Dhan | Raise Securities Pvt Ltd | Raise Financial Services ecosystem | Unlisted | INZ000006031 |
| SBI Securities | SBICAP Securities Ltd | Wholly owned by SBI Capital Markets | Unlisted indirect SBI subsidiary | INZ000200032 |
| Motilal Oswal | Motilal Oswal Financial Services Ltd | Listed diversified financial group | Listed — NSE: MOTILALOFS; BSE: 532892 | INZ000158836 |
Leadership context
Groww was founded by Lalit Keshre, Harsh Jain, Ishan Bansal and Neeraj Singh; Lalit Keshre remains CEO. Groww’s FY26 annual report describes the company as operating India’s largest retail-broking platform by active clients.
Zerodha remains founder-led by Nithin Kamath, with Nikhil Kamath as co-founder. Angel One remains promoter-led by Dinesh Thakkar, while Ambarish Kenghe leads the operating organization. Dhan was founded by former Paytm Money chief Pravin Jadhav. Motilal Oswal’s identity remains closely connected to founders Motilal Oswal and Raamdeo Agrawal.
Confidence: HIGH for legal entities/listing status/SEBI registrations.
3. The most important competitive KPI: NSE active clients
August 2026
| Rank within these 10 | Broker | NSE active clients | Market share | Aug-25 active clients | YoY growth | Share change |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Groww | 13,347,233 | 29.04% | 12,072,243 | +10.6% | +2.78 pp |
| 2 | Zerodha | 6,796,854 | 14.79% | 7,262,850 | -6.4% | -1.01 pp |
| 3 | Angel One | 6,718,755 | 14.62% | 7,045,909 | -4.6% | -0.71 pp |
| 4 | ICICI Securities | 2,156,209 | 4.69% | 1,965,200 | +9.7% | +0.41 pp |
| 5 | Upstox | 1,864,628 | 4.06% | 2,377,534 | -21.6% | -1.11 pp |
| 6 | Kotak Securities | 1,391,663 | 3.03% | 1,424,554 | -2.3% | -0.07 pp |
| 7 | HDFC Securities | 1,351,311 | 2.94% | 1,541,284 | -12.3% | -0.41 pp |
| 8 | Dhan | 1,107,277 | 2.41% | 987,273 | +12.2% | +0.26 pp |
| 9 | SBI Securities | 1,043,820 | 2.27% | 1,055,013 | -1.1% | -0.03 pp |
| 10 | Motilal Oswal | 906,005 | 1.97% | 966,090 | -6.2% | -0.13 pp |
August 2026 figures are NSE active-client statistics reported from the latest monthly data; Groww, Zerodha and Angel together account for approximately 58.5% of NSE active clients, while these ten firms together represent roughly 79.8%.
For comparison, August 2025 market shares were approximately Groww 26.26%, Zerodha 15.80%, Angel 15.33%, Upstox 5.17%, ICICI 4.28%, HDFC 3.35%, Kotak 3.10%, SBI 2.30%, Dhan 2.15% and Motilal Oswal 2.10%.
What this says
Three developments matter more than the absolute rankings.
Groww is taking market share while already operating from the largest base. A 2.78-percentage-point gain from roughly 26.3% to 29.0% in one year is economically meaningful.
Dhan is also gaining share, albeit from a much smaller base. Its 12.2% active-client growth exceeds every other company in this comparison.
Upstox has the clearest client-retention/acquisition issue in the dataset. Active clients declined roughly 21.6% YoY and share fell by 1.11 percentage points.
Zerodha and Angel remain enormous platforms, but both lost active-client share over this period.
Don’t confuse Groww’s own active-user number with NSE active clients
Groww reported 16.7 million “active users” as of 31 March 2026, whereas NSE active clients in August 2026 were about 13.35 million. Those are different company/exchange definitions and should not be collapsed into one metric.
Confidence: MEDIUM-HIGH. The monthly numbers reflect NSE data but some accessible current tables are distributed through financial-industry publications rather than a convenient NSE comparison page.
4. FY26 financial comparison
The top-line definitions below differ deliberately. A diversified NBFC such as Motilal Oswal cannot be compared mechanically with a pure broker using one revenue line.
| Company | FY26 top-line used | YoY | FY26 PAT / operating PAT | YoY | Key interpretation |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Groww | ₹4,815.9 cr total income | +18.6% | ₹2,083 cr | +14.2% | Strong growth + very high margins |
| Zerodha | ~₹8.5k–8.85k cr* | broadly flat | ₹4,283 cr | ~+1% | Exceptional profitability despite regulation |
| Angel One | ₹5,152.2 cr | -1.8% | ₹915.1 cr | -21.9% | FY26 earnings reset |
| ICICI Securities | ₹5,896.2 cr gross income | -6.9% | ₹1,713.1 cr | -11.8% | Still highly profitable; now ICICI Bank subsidiary |
| Upstox | FY26 not sufficiently verified | — | FY26 actual not sufficiently verified | — | Disclosure disadvantage |
| Kotak Securities | ~₹5,704.1 cr total income | +6.7% | ₹1,642 cr | ~flat | Stable high-profit bank broker |
| HDFC Securities | ₹3,110.2 cr | -4.7% | ₹929.9 cr | -17.3% | Lower FY26 earnings, strong balance-sheet ecosystem |
| Dhan / Raise Securities | ₹905 cr operating revenue | +13.9% | ₹326 cr | -20.2% | Customer/revenue growth but margin pressure |
| SBI Securities | ₹2,508.0 cr total income | +7.7% | ₹593.6 cr | +0.2% | Stable profit despite growth in income |
| MOFSL | ₹5,908 cr revenue after intercompany | — | ₹2,360 cr operating PAT | +16% | Diversification increasingly important |
*Zerodha is the largest disclosure caveat. Different credible reports quote somewhat different FY26 revenue measures. PAT around ₹4,283 crore is much more consistently reported. It would be misleading to manufacture false precision around the revenue denominator. Reported brokerage income was roughly ₹2,738 crore, down about 10.7%, while transaction-charge income that had previously contributed roughly ₹400 crore disappeared following regulatory pricing changes.
Groww’s audited FY26 consolidated numbers were revenue from operations of ₹4,644.6 crore, total income ₹4,815.9 crore, EBITDA approximately ₹2,746.4 crore and PAT ₹2,083 crore.
Angel One reported FY26 total income of ₹5,152.2 crore, EBDAT ₹1,396.9 crore and PAT ₹915.1 crore, compared with ₹1,172.1 crore PAT in FY25.
Dhan’s brokerage entity produced approximately ₹905 crore revenue and ₹326 crore PAT; revenue grew about 14%, but profit fell around 20%. Reporting linked part of the pressure to the tightening of F&O activity.
Motilal Oswal reported ₹6.6 lakh crore Assets Under Advice, ₹12,888 crore net worth, ₹5,908 crore revenue after intercompany adjustments and ₹2,360 crore operating PAT for FY26.
Confidence: HIGH for listed-company audited accounts and HDFC/SBI; MEDIUM for private-company numbers reported through business media; LOW/MEDIUM for Upstox FY26 because an audited comparable FY26 result was not verified.
5. What FY26 profitability tells us
The earnings trajectories are much more informative than customer rankings alone.
Groww
Groww combined almost 19% top-line growth and 14% PAT growth with rising customer share. That is the rare combination in this peer set where scale, market-share gains and profitability are moving in the same direction.
However, FY26 return on net worth fell to 21.58% from 37.57%, mainly because its IPO sharply expanded equity capital. Net worth nearly doubled to ₹9,651.4 crore.
That ROE decline is therefore very different from a deterioration caused by collapsing earnings.
Zerodha
Zerodha demonstrates the economics of a mature, extremely efficient digital broker. Its active-client population fell, brokerage revenue was pressured and a historical transaction-charge revenue stream disappeared, yet PAT remained around ₹4,283 crore.
This indicates tremendous underlying operating efficiency, but also highlights the central issue for future analysis: how much incremental growth remains in the core broking model?
Angel One
Angel’s FY26 is almost the reverse case: still a huge platform, but customer activity and earnings compressed materially.
The more interesting number is Q1 FY27. Angel reported gross revenue around ₹1,433.7 crore, EBDAT ₹359.7 crore and PAT ₹231.4 crore, with PAT up sharply YoY. Its client-funding book and wealth AUM were also expanding. This provides evidence of recovery/diversification, although one quarter cannot establish a new long-term earnings trend.
Dhan
Dhan presents a classic growth-vs-monetization trade-off:
- active clients +12.2% YoY;
- revenue +14%;
- profit approximately -20%.
That tells us growth is genuine, but the cost of acquisition, investment in product/team and F&O normalization matter enormously to the eventual economics.
Bank brokers
ICICI, Kotak, HDFC and SBI illustrate why active-client share by itself is insufficient.
The ability to monetize customers through margin funding, cash balances, investment products, bank integration, wealth products and distribution can make a 2–5% market-share broker economically much more valuable per relationship than a low-ticket mass platform.
6. Trading activity: what can and cannot be compared
A common research mistake is to combine orders, notional derivatives turnover, option premium turnover and cash-market turnover into one “volume” metric. The original specification correctly prohibits that.
There is not a sufficiently complete current public dataset allowing all ten brokers to be compared on identical segment-level turnover definitions.
Verified disclosures include:
| Broker | Current disclosed activity |
|---|---|
| Angel One | FY26 approximately 1.514 billion broking orders; retail equity turnover share around 20.2% |
| HDFC Securities | FY26 equity traded volumes around ₹6.8 trillion; derivatives volumes reportedly +83% YoY |
| Kotak Securities | FY26 disclosed cash-market share around 9.87% and derivatives-market share around 15.04% |
| Others | No sufficiently uniform FY26 metric retrieved to put in the same table without mixing definitions |
Accordingly, I would not create a synthetic “total trading-volume ranking.”
That would produce numerical precision without economic validity.
7. Brokerage pricing — September 2026
Core retail pricing
| Broker | Equity delivery | Intraday | Futures / Options | Account / AMC observations |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Groww | Lower of ₹20 or 0.1%, min ₹5 | Same basic equity brokerage framework | ₹20/order F&O | ₹0 opening, ₹0 AMC |
| Zerodha | ₹0 | ₹20 or 0.03%, lower | Futures ₹20/0.03%; Options ₹20/order | Individual opening free; AMC depending on demat category |
| Angel One | Lower of ₹20 or 0.1%, minimum ₹5 | Similar | ₹20/executed order | Promotional first-period waiver; subsequent AMC applies outside eligible BSDA |
| ICICI Direct | Default plans can be percentage-based; MoneySaver about 0.29% delivery | Plan dependent | iVALUE offers ₹20/order structure | Premium/Prime pricing varies |
| Upstox | Up to ₹20/order | ₹20 or applicable percentage cap | ₹20/order | Account/AMC offers depend on onboarding terms |
| Kotak Neo | Trade Free: about 0.20% after introductory period | ₹10 or 0.05% lower | ₹10/order | Pro/youth plans materially change economics |
| HDFC Sky | ₹20 or applicable percentage cap | similar | ₹20/order | first-year AMC promotions |
| Dhan | ₹0 delivery | ₹20 or 0.03% lower | ₹20/order | ₹0 opening + ₹0 AMC |
| SBI Securities | Plan-dependent: roughly 0.10–0.35% on common plans | can be ₹20 or promotional zero | highly plan dependent | Subscription plans materially change pricing |
| Motilal Oswal | Historically around 0.20% standard delivery | ~0.02% typical plan | ~₹20 options lot/order structure depending plan | AMC commonly applies after introductory period |
Groww’s official pricing page currently specifies zero opening/AMC, ₹20 or 0.1% per equity order whichever is lower with ₹5 minimum, ₹20 F&O brokerage, ₹20 per ISIN pledge/unpledge and MTF interest of 14.95% p.a.
Pricing positioning
Zerodha and Dhan retain particularly attractive economics for long-term delivery investors because standard delivery brokerage is zero.
Groww’s advantage is no longer simply “cheapest broker.” Its current equity pricing means its competitive argument increasingly rests on customer experience, scale and ecosystem.
Kotak/HDFC/ICICI/SBI should not be evaluated from headline brokerage alone. Their value proposition includes bank integration, research, relationship ecosystem and financing.
Confidence: HIGH where official pricing pages were available; MEDIUM for Motilal Oswal and certain plan-specific SBI comparisons because pricing changes with customer plan.
8. Product ecosystem
Legend: ✓ strong/current core offering; ◐ available through wider group, partner or selected proposition; — not a meaningful current core proposition.
| Platform | Stocks | MF | F&O | IPO | Bonds / fixed income | Wealth/PMS/AIF | Insurance / credit | API / advanced trading |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Groww | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ emerging | ✓ | ✓ |
| Zerodha | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | — | — | ✓ |
| Angel One | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓/◐ | ✓ emerging | ✓/◐ | ✓ |
| ICICI Direct | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓/◐ |
| Upstox | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ◐ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Kotak Neo | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓/◐ | ✓ via group | ✓ via group | ✓ |
| HDFC Sky | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓/◐ | ✓ via group | ✓ via group | ◐ |
| Dhan | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ◐ | — | ◐ | ✓✓ |
| SBI Securities | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ via group | ✓ via SBI ecosystem | ◐ |
| Motilal Oswal | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓✓ | ◐ | ✓ |
Groww’s Play listing currently advertises stocks, mutual funds, F&O, precious metals, MTF, commodity derivatives, ETFs, IPOs, bonds and API trading.
Upstox currently promotes equities, mutual funds, IPOs, FDs, T-bills, bonds, gold, commodities, currency and advanced derivatives tools.
Dhan is particularly differentiated around active-trader tooling, charts and execution workflows rather than simply having more product categories.
Motilal Oswal has the broadest institutional/wealth architecture in this comparison because the listed business extends substantially beyond the retail-broker app.
9. App and digital-platform comparison
Google Play snapshot — September 2026
| Platform | Rating | Reviews | Download bucket |
|---|---|---|---|
| Groww | 4.9 | ~2.45m | 100m+ |
| Zerodha Kite | ~4.5 | ~390k | 10m+ |
| Angel One | ~4.4–4.5 | ~1.9m | 100m+ |
| ICICI Direct | ~4.6 | ~193k | 5m+ |
| Upstox | 4.4 | ~494k | 10m+ |
| Kotak Neo | 4.8 | ~212k | 10m+ |
| HDFC Sky | 4.3 | ~44k | 10m+ |
| Dhan | 4.0 | ~59.7k | 10m+ |
| SBI Securities | ~4.2 | ~57k | 5m+ |
| MO RIISE | 3.7 | ~144k | 10m+ |
Groww’s current Google Play page shows 4.9 stars, roughly 2.45 million reviews and 100m+ downloads.
Angel One is also in the 100m+ download bucket with around 1.9 million reviews. Upstox and Dhan are in the 10m+ bucket.
Kotak Neo currently shows 4.8 stars and 10m+ downloads, while HDFC Sky shows about 4.3 stars and 10m+.
MO RIISE shows approximately 3.7 stars, 144,000 reviews and 10m+ downloads.
Crucial qualification
100 million downloads does not mean 100 million customers.
Nor does a 4.9-star app automatically imply superior trading reliability.
Download buckets are cumulative installs; ratings can change by storefront, device and geography; app reviews over-represent both highly satisfied and dissatisfied customers.
Consequently, I would use app data as a digital-distribution/engagement signal, not a financial KPI.
Product-quality profiles
Groww: strongest mass-market simplicity and onboarding orientation; increasingly broad ecosystem.
Zerodha: highly mature serious-investor/trader ecosystem built around Kite, Coin, APIs and partner applications.
Angel One: exceptionally broad retail reach plus increasingly sophisticated wealth/credit/mutual-fund products.
Upstox: very capable derivatives/trader tools, but customer-share retention has become the more important business question.
Kotak Neo: increasingly competitive digital UX combined with aggressive brokerage pricing.
HDFC Sky: dramatically simpler than the traditional bank-broker experience, but its digital franchise remains younger.
Dhan: arguably the most specialized trader-first architecture of the ten—TradingView integration, options tooling, DhanHQ APIs and DEXT are important differentiation.
SBI Securities: distribution reach and SBI trust are stronger competitive advantages than cutting-edge UX.
Motilal Oswal: rich research/wealth capabilities, although app-store ratings remain materially weaker than several digital-native competitors.
Confidence: HIGH for raw Play-store observations; MEDIUM for qualitative UX interpretation.
10. Website traffic and SEO
I would not publish a monthly-visits league table from the evidence currently available.
Public Similarweb/search snippets did not produce a consistent current-period total-website-visit dataset for all ten domains. Some surfaced AI-referral traffic numbers, but those are not total website visits.
Using them as such would violate the research brief’s requirement to clearly distinguish third-party estimates and avoid false comparisons.
Website traffic: N/A rather than invented.
Confidence: LOW / insufficient comparable data.
11. Customer monetization
This is where simple rankings become dangerous.
A bank broker can have fewer active clients but much greater revenue per customer because of:
- MTF and financing;
- affluent/HNI mix;
- bank deposits/cash ecosystem;
- wealth distribution;
- mutual funds and insurance;
- relationship-management channels.
Likewise, Motilal Oswal’s ₹5,908 crore FY26 revenue should not simply be divided by 906,005 NSE active brokerage clients—the numerator includes major businesses unrelated to those brokerage clients.
Angel One is one of the cleaner examples where FY26 platform-level disclosures permit reasonable comparison: approximately ₹5,152 crore total income and about 6.8 million FY26 NSE active clients imply roughly ₹7,600 annual income per year-end active client as an indicative ratio. It should still not be compared mechanically with diversified-bank brokers.
HDFC Securities’ disclosed 1.5 million FY26 active clients and ₹3,110 crore income would imply over ₹20,000 per active client, illustrating just how much customer economics can differ by business model.
Therefore:
Revenue/client is useful only after understanding what sits inside “revenue” and “client.”
12. Balance-sheet and earnings quality
Groww
FY26 net worth increased to about ₹9,651 crore, substantially strengthened by the IPO. Operating profitability before working-capital changes was healthy. Consolidated operating cash flow was affected by changes in financial assets and lending-related growth rather than simply by weak accounting earnings.
This is exactly why broker/NBFC cash flow should not be analyzed like an industrial manufacturer.
SBI Securities
FY26 audited figures provide a particularly good example:
- assets: about ₹6,536 crore;
- cash: ₹689 crore;
- other bank balances: ₹1,759 crore;
- loans: ₹3,260 crore;
- total equity: ₹2,633 crore;
- PAT: ₹593.6 crore.
Yet operating cash flow was roughly negative ₹295 crore as financial assets/loans expanded.
That does not automatically imply poor earnings quality.
Earnings-quality interpretation
Traditional CFO/PAT and FCF/PAT ratios are much more difficult to interpret for:
- brokers with client-funding books;
- MTF businesses;
- NBFC structures;
- companies actively expanding financial assets.
For these companies I would prioritize:
ROE/ROANW + net worth + asset quality + funding costs + margin-book growth + regulatory capital + earnings mix
over a simplistic industrial-company FCF yield.
13. Piotroski, Altman Z, ROIC/WACC, DCF and DDM
This is an important place to not blindly execute formulas.
Piotroski F-Score
Not used as a primary comparative measure.
The nine-signal Piotroski framework was designed principally for operating/non-financial businesses. Financial intermediaries’ working capital, leverage, asset turnover and financing structures mean several signals do not have the same economic meaning.
A mechanically calculated 7/9 broker should not be interpreted as financially stronger than a 5/9 broker.
Altman Z-Score
Not meaningful for these companies.
Altman’s conventional model uses working capital, retained earnings, EBIT, market equity/liabilities and asset turnover in a framework designed around industrial bankruptcy risk.
For brokers/NBFC-like businesses, liabilities and financial assets are part of operating architecture.
Applying industrial Altman thresholds would be analytical malpractice.
Traditional ROIC/WACC
Also problematic for most brokers.
Debt and financial assets can be operating inputs rather than financing choices. ROE/ROANW is generally more informative.
Examples:
- Groww FY26 return on net worth: 21.58%.
- MOFSL reported FY26 ROE around 24%.
Conventional FCFF DCF
I would not force a conventional industrial FCFF DCF onto these broker/financial-services companies.
A better valuation architecture is:
normalized earnings × justified P/E
plus
P/B / residual-income analysis
with explicit scenarios for:
- active-client growth;
- revenue/customer;
- F&O normalization;
- MTF growth;
- non-broking revenue;
- sustainable ROE;
- terminal growth.
DDM
Not a primary model.
Groww currently does not have a mature dividend profile, and Angel/MOFSL payouts are not sufficiently stable to make DDM the decisive valuation framework.
This follows the brief’s own instruction not to force DCF or DDM when the economics make them inappropriate.
14. Listed-equity valuation — 24 September 2026
Only three members of the original comparison currently provide a directly investable standalone listed equity:
Groww parent, Angel One and Motilal Oswal Financial Services.
ICICI Securities is no longer independently tradable.
Groww — Billionbrains Garage Ventures
Price: ₹186.55
Market cap: approximately ₹1.18 trillion / ₹118,000 crore
TTM revenue: ~₹5,379 crore
TTM net income: ~₹2,440 crore
TTM P/E: approximately 47.9×
Forward P/E: approximately 36.1×
FY26 net worth: ₹9,651 crore
Approximate market-cap/FY26 book: ~12×
Current price and third-party TTM valuation metrics are as of 24 September 2026.
What the valuation implies
The market is already assigning significant value to:
- continued customer-share gains;
- high incremental margins;
- cross-selling;
- asset-management expansion;
- wealth products;
- lending;
- India’s financialization.
At approximately 48× TTM earnings, valuation risk is therefore not trivial: good operational performance can coexist with disappointing shareholder returns if growth falls below embedded expectations.
15. Angel One valuation
Angel One closed around ₹290.70 on NSE on 24 September 2026 after its share split. Available market-data providers currently show market capitalization around ₹27,000 crore and TTM P/E readings broadly in the mid-20s; provider differences reflect timing and earnings conventions.
The investment question is substantially different from Groww.
Angel’s market valuation reflects:
- a large existing brokerage franchise;
- FY26 earnings compression;
- F&O/regulatory sensitivity;
- investment in wealth/AMC/credit diversification;
- the possibility that Q1 FY27 represents improving earnings momentum.
Its valuation is therefore less dependent on extraordinarily high customer growth, but more dependent on whether earnings diversification succeeds.
16. Motilal Oswal Financial Services valuation
24-Sep-2026 price: about ₹1,022 NSE
Market cap: approximately ₹61,385 crore
Conventional TTM P/E: approximately 31.7× according to one current market-data provider.
But that conventional P/E deserves special caution.
MOFSL’s statutory earnings contain mark-to-market effects from its investment book. FY26 operating PAT of ₹2,360 crore is a cleaner representation of underlying operating franchises than looking only at volatile statutory reported earnings.
Market cap / FY26 operating PAT is roughly 26×.
That is not an accounting P/E ratio; it is an analytical operating-earnings multiple.
17. Shareholding — listed comparators
June 2026 approximate structure
| Company | Promoter | FII/FPI | Mutual funds / major domestic institutional exposure | Observation |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Groww | ~27.14% | ~6.89% | MF ~8.69% | institutional ownership rose following listing |
| Angel One | ~28.59% | ~13.76% | MF ~18.33% | meaningful institutional participation |
| MOFSL | ~67.20% | ~6.86% | MF ~5.47% | much higher founder/promoter ownership |
These figures are compiled from current shareholding databases that derive their data from exchange filings; they should be cross-checked against the relevant quarterly exchange filing before any transaction dependent on an exact percentage.
MOFSL’s ownership architecture remains much more promoter-heavy than Groww or Angel.
18. Regulatory and compliance review
A simplistic “SEBI registered = no regulatory risk” assumption would be wrong.
SEBI records show recent enforcement/settlement history including:
Groww: settlement orders in May 2025, including a comprehensive-inspection matter.
Angel One: settlement/adjudication activity, including a settlement order dated 15 June 2026.
HDFC Securities: settlement order dated 11 March 2025.
ICICI Securities: multiple 2025 settlement orders; one arose from a joint SEBI/NSE inspection covering April-May 2023.
Motilal Oswal Financial Services: 2025 adjudication activity and a September 2025 settlement relating to a suspected front-running investigation.
These should not be read as equivalent events. A settlement order is not automatically equivalent to an adjudicated finding of every allegation, and cases differ materially in facts and seriousness.
The correct investor question is:
Are compliance incidents isolated and remediated, or do they indicate a persistent control problem?
That requires monitoring over several years.
19. Structural industry risks
| Risk | Probability | Impact | Evidence / mechanism | KPI to monitor |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| F&O regulation | High | High | retail-derivatives regulation already affected activity/profits | F&O orders, premium turnover, brokerage/customer |
| Pricing compression | High | Medium/High | ₹0–₹20 models increasingly common | brokerage yield/order |
| Equity-market downturn | High over a cycle | High | retail activity, IPOs and derivatives are cyclical | active traders, orders/day |
| Technology outage | Medium | High | digital-only execution makes uptime critical | exchange complaints/outage minutes |
| Cybersecurity | Medium | Very high | custody/trading/PII ecosystem | incidents, audit findings |
| MTF/credit expansion | Medium | High | can lift monetization but adds funding/credit risk | loan book, yields, NPAs, funding cost |
| Customer acquisition cost inflation | Medium/High | Medium | aggressive competition | acquisition cost, organic acquisition |
| Compliance failures | Medium | High | multiple brokers have recent regulatory orders | SEBI/NSE/BSE actions |
| Market-share erosion | High for some | Medium/High | Upstox/HDFC/Zerodha examples | NSE active share |
| Valuation compression | Medium | High for listed equities | particularly relevant to high-P/E platforms | P/E versus growth/ROE |
| Key-person/governance risk | Medium | Medium/High | several firms founder-driven | leadership/related-party developments |
20. Business-model archetypes
Groww — consumer financial super-platform model
Economics increasingly extend beyond trading into mutual funds, MTF, credit, asset management and wealth.
The long-term question is not merely whether Groww remains India’s largest broker.
It is:
How much of the customer’s financial wallet can Groww capture?
Zerodha — ultra-efficient focused platform
Zerodha has resisted the “do everything” model more than peers.
Its strengths are:
- cost discipline;
- high customer trust;
- trader/investor ecosystem;
- technology;
- enormous profitability without external capital-market pressure.
Its primary challenge is growth rather than current economics.
Angel One — brokerage-to-fintech transition
Angel is trying to convert a huge brokerage customer base into:
- mutual funds;
- SIPs;
- wealth;
- AMC;
- credit;
- broader financial distribution.
Execution matters because FY26 demonstrates the vulnerability of the legacy earnings engine.
Bank brokers — monetization and distribution
ICICI, Kotak, HDFC and SBI possess an advantage that is easy to underestimate:
they do not need to acquire every customer from scratch.
Their banks already hold the customer, money, KYC relationship and often salary/wealth relationship.
Dhan — power-user specialization
Dhan is building differentiation around traders rather than sheer mass-market simplicity.
That creates strong engagement potential but also leaves economics relatively exposed to derivatives regulation.
MOFSL — capital-markets/wealth compounder model
Brokerage is now only one component of the value proposition.
Asset management, wealth, private wealth and investment gains/losses can dominate incremental earnings.
21. 0–100 research scorecard
The requested weighting system is useful only if treated as a research framework rather than an investment recommendation.
For private companies, a reliable current valuation score cannot be constructed because there is no continuously traded equity value. I therefore show a normalized Business & Platform Score excluding valuation rather than assigning an invented private-market valuation.
| Company | Business & Platform research score* | Valuation score if listed | Full listed-equity score | Data confidence |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Groww | 87/100 | 38/100 | ~83/100 | High |
| Zerodha | 79/100 | N/M | N/M | Medium/High |
| Angel One | 67/100 | 62/100 | ~67/100 | High |
| ICICI Securities | 74/100 | N/M | N/M | High |
| Upstox | 60/100 | N/M | N/M | Medium/Low |
| Kotak Securities | 76/100 | N/M | N/M | Medium/High |
| HDFC Securities | 70/100 | N/M | N/M | High |
| Dhan | 75/100 | N/M | N/M | Medium |
| SBI Securities | 72/100 | N/M | N/M | High |
| MOFSL | 76/100 | 55/100 | ~75/100 | High |
*Includes the requested financial health, revenue/profit growth, customer growth, market share, activity growth, monetization, business quality, moat, technology, management and risk categories; valuation is excluded and the remaining weights are normalized.
These numbers are intentionally not a ranking of which stock to buy. A high business-quality score combined with an expensive valuation can offer a very different investment proposition from a slower-growth company at a lower multiple.
22. Company deep dives
GROWW / BILLIONBRAINS GARAGE VENTURES
Business
The clearest scale-and-share growth story in Indian broking. It has evolved from mutual funds to equities, derivatives, MTF, commodities, credit, asset management and wealth.
Customers
13.35 million NSE active clients in August 2026, approximately 29.0% share.
Financials
FY26 revenue from operations ₹4,644.6 crore; total income ₹4,815.9 crore; PAT ₹2,083 crore.
Balance sheet
IPO capital almost doubled net worth to roughly ₹9,651 crore.
Moat
Scale + brand + mass-market UX + very low friction acquisition + expanding wallet share.
Major issue
The stock’s valuation already recognizes a significant portion of those strengths.
Key KPIs
NSE client share; customer retention; revenue/customer; MTF book; AMC AUM; wealth assets; credit quality; ROE.
Bull-case evidence
Market share continues rising even from the largest base while new products increase monetization.
Bear-case evidence
Growth premium is high; slower customer growth, regulation or failed cross-selling could compress the multiple.
ZERODHA
Business
The highest-purity digital brokerage model in this comparison.
Financials
FY26 PAT around ₹4,283 crore despite regulatory revenue pressure and client decline.
Customers
6.80 million active clients; 14.79% share versus 15.80% one year earlier.
Moat
Brand, product quality, trader ecosystem, APIs, extremely efficient cost structure and unusually strong organic acquisition.
Key weakness
The core franchise is now mature enough that market-share and customer growth are negative.
Important analytical question
Can adjacent businesses such as asset management and broader investing products create another material growth engine without diluting Zerodha’s operating philosophy?
KPIs
Active-client share, brokerage revenue, interest income, AMC growth, orders/day, support reliability.
ANGEL ONE
Business
A scaled listed broker undergoing a deliberate transformation into a broader fintech platform.
FY26
₹5,152 crore total income and ₹915 crore PAT, with earnings materially lower YoY.
Platform
37.4 million total client base was disclosed for FY26, but NSE active clients were much lower—again demonstrating why registrations and active trading accounts are not equivalent.
Opportunity
MF/SIP, wealth, asset management and lending can reduce brokerage/F&O concentration.
Risk
The transition costs money before diversification becomes large enough to offset weakness in transaction revenue.
KPI
Non-broking revenue, client funding, AMC AUM, wealth AUM, orders, NSE share and PAT margin.
ICICI SECURITIES / ICICI DIRECT
Structure
No longer independently investable after the March 2025 delisting. It should now be analyzed as part of ICICI Bank.
Customers
2.16 million active clients and a rising 4.69% share.
Economics
FY26 gross income about ₹5,896 crore and PAT about ₹1,713 crore.
Moat
Probably the strongest bank-integrated 3-in-1 proposition in this comparison.
Advantages
ICICI customer acquisition funnel, deposits, wealth relationships, research and broad product availability.
Risks
Higher headline pricing than discount brokers and less clean pure-play equity exposure for investors because ownership now sits within ICICI Bank.
KPI
Client share, MTF book, wealth/distribution income and cross-sell from ICICI Bank.
UPSTOX
Customers
1.86 million active clients, down about 21.6% YoY.
This is the most important number in the current Upstox thesis.
Platform
The product itself remains highly capable, with options strategies, TradingView-style functionality, equities, MF, IPO, bonds/fixed income and commodities.
Financial disclosure
Current FY26 financial transparency is materially weaker than for listed peers; a previously cited FY25 PAT of about ₹215 crore should not be confused with FY26 projections.
Opportunity
Large registered-user funnel plus strong trading technology.
Risk
Registered users do not help economics if active-user conversion/retention remains weak.
KPI
NSE active clients and share—before almost anything else.
KOTAK SECURITIES / KOTAK NEO
FY26
Kotak Securities PAT was approximately ₹1,642 crore, essentially flat YoY.
Business
A profitable traditional broker increasingly rebuilt around a modern low-cost digital proposition.
Moat
Kotak Bank customer funnel + wealth franchise + balance-sheet capability + improving digital experience.
Product/pricing
₹10-order-style trading propositions make the assumption that bank brokers must always be expensive increasingly obsolete.
Opportunity
Digital modernization can convert more of Kotak’s bank franchise into active investing customers.
Risk
Active-client share is broadly stagnant rather than structurally expanding.
KPI
Digital acquisitions, derivatives/cash-market share, MTF, active-client share and profit/customer.
HDFC SECURITIES / HDFC SKY
FY26
Revenue roughly ₹3,110 crore; PAT approximately ₹930 crore, down about 17%.
Customer economics
Only about 1.35 million NSE active clients in August 2026, yet the overall business produces substantial income—evidence of higher monetization and broader financial relationships.
Moat
HDFC Bank distribution, affluent-client base, brand and financing.
Opportunity
HDFC Sky can dramatically lower the friction traditionally associated with bank brokerage.
Risks
Active clients declined roughly 12% YoY; earnings also fell materially.
KPI
Sky acquisitions, MTF book, derivative activity, income/customer, share stabilization.
DHAN
Business
The most interesting specialist challenger in the cohort.
Customers
Active clients grew 12.2% YoY, faster than Groww in percentage terms, although from a much smaller base.
FY26
Revenue about ₹905 crore, +14%; PAT about ₹326 crore, -20%.
Moat
Trader-centric UX, options tooling, APIs, DEXT and product iteration.
Risk
Strong exposure to the economics of active trading and derivatives means regulation matters disproportionately.
Opportunity
If Dhan retains power users while expanding long-term investing, revenue mix could become more durable.
KPI
Active-client growth, profit/client, F&O mix, marketing cost, revenue diversification.
SBI SECURITIES
FY26
Total income approximately ₹2,508 crore and PAT ₹594 crore.
Structure
Wholly owned by SBI Capital Markets and therefore indirectly embedded in India’s largest banking ecosystem.
Moat
Distribution and trust.
Financial profile
Substantial loan/financial-asset balances mean cash-flow analysis must be interpreted as a financial intermediary, not an industrial enterprise.
Opportunity
Conversion of SBI’s enormous customer base into active investing relationships.
Risk
Technology/UX and customer engagement need to compete with digital natives; having access to customers does not ensure they become active traders.
KPI
Active-client share, digital acquisitions, income/customer, lending book and platform engagement.
MOTILAL OSWAL FINANCIAL SERVICES
Business
This should increasingly be viewed as a diversified capital-market/asset/wealth company, not simply “Motilal Oswal the broker.”
FY26
Assets Under Advice ₹6.6 lakh crore, net worth ₹12,888 crore, revenue after intercompany ₹5,908 crore, operating PAT ₹2,360 crore, ROE about 24%.
Brokerage clients
Only about 906,000 NSE active clients—far below Groww/Angel/Zerodha.
That apparent weakness becomes much less important when assessing the listed parent because asset management and wealth contribute heavily to group economics.
Moat
Research, advisory, asset management, brand, HNI/private wealth and decades of capital-market experience.
Risk
Statutory profit can be noisy because of the company’s investment book.
KPI
Recurring revenue, MF/AIF AUM, private-wealth assets, operating PAT, investment-book exposure and operating ROE.
23. What the market may be missing — listed companies
Groww
Possibly underappreciated
The key upside variable is not another few million brokerage accounts by itself. It is multi-product monetization of the 13m+ active-client franchise.
Groww’s annual report specifically emphasizes expanding asset-based revenues, wealth, asset management and credit.
Already substantially recognized
Leadership in customer acquisition and digital brokerage is hardly hidden at approximately 48× TTM earnings.
Perception-changing KPI
Revenue per retained active customer without sacrificing customer growth.
Angel One
Possibly underappreciated
The speed with which wealth, AMC, SIP and lending products can alter earnings mix if Q1 FY27 momentum persists.
Already recognized as a risk
Transaction/F&O sensitivity.
Perception-changing KPI
Growth in non-broking profit contribution versus stabilization of core broking PAT.
Motilal Oswal
Possibly underappreciated
The business is becoming materially more recurring through asset and private-wealth management.
Source of valuation confusion
Reported profit is affected by mark-to-market movements in the group’s investment portfolio.
Perception-changing KPI
Operating PAT and recurring asset/wealth-management earnings, rather than a single statutory quarterly PAT number.
24. KPI dashboard
| Dimension | KPI I would monitor |
|---|---|
| Customer | NSE active clients |
| Customer | YoY active-client growth |
| Customer | Active-client share change in percentage points |
| Engagement | Orders / active client |
| Trading | Cash turnover share |
| Trading | F&O premium/activity share |
| Monetization | Brokerage revenue / active client |
| Monetization | Total revenue / relevant customer |
| Diversification | Non-broking revenue % |
| Financing | MTF/client-funding book |
| Financial | PAT and normalized PAT growth |
| Financial | ROE/ROANW |
| Financial | Net worth |
| Digital | App rating/reviews — secondary signal only |
| Product | MF/SIP/AUM/wealth adoption |
| Regulation | SEBI/NSE/BSE orders and complaints |
| Technology | Material outages / availability |
| Listed valuation | P/E relative to sustainable EPS growth |
| Listed valuation | P/B relative to sustainable ROE |
25. The most useful strategic comparison
| Platform | Dominant strength | Current strategic question |
|---|---|---|
| Groww | Customer acquisition + market-share momentum | Can wallet-share growth justify the valuation embedded in the listed stock? |
| Zerodha | Profitability + efficiency + ecosystem | Where does the next leg of growth come from? |
| Angel One | Scale + broadening fintech ecosystem | Can diversification restore durable earnings growth? |
| ICICI Direct | Bank integration + monetization | Can it continue client-share gains despite premium positioning? |
| Upstox | Strong product/trader technology | Can active-client losses be reversed? |
| Kotak Neo | Bank ecosystem + aggressive new pricing | Can modern product/pricing translate into share gains? |
| HDFC Sky | HDFC distribution + monetization | Can Sky reverse client decline and modernize the franchise? |
| Dhan | Trader-focused innovation | Can rapid growth survive lower derivatives economics? |
| SBI Securities | Massive bank distribution | Can SBI convert reach into digital engagement? |
| MOFSL | Asset/wealth/business diversification | How much of future value comes from recurring asset businesses versus market-sensitive earnings? |
26. Data-confidence dashboard
| Research area | Confidence | Reason |
|---|---|---|
| Legal entities | HIGH | SEBI/NSE/company disclosures |
| Listing status | HIGH | Exchange filings |
| Aug-26 active clients | MEDIUM-HIGH | NSE-origin monthly data reproduced by current financial sources |
| Listed FY26 accounts | HIGH | audited/company filings |
| HDFC/SBI financials | HIGH | annual financial statements |
| Zerodha FY26 PAT | MEDIUM-HIGH | multiple current reports; private-company disclosure |
| Zerodha precise FY26 revenue | MEDIUM/LOW | conflicting revenue definitions/sources |
| Dhan FY26 | MEDIUM | private-company financial reporting through reputable media |
| Upstox FY26 | LOW | insufficient verified current audited data |
| Pricing | HIGH/MEDIUM | official pages except certain plan-specific cases |
| Google Play data | HIGH for observed numbers | live app-store pages |
| App quality | MEDIUM | qualitative interpretation |
| Website traffic | LOW | consistent comparable dataset unavailable |
| Private-company valuation | N/A | no reliable continuously observable market value |
| Regulatory orders | HIGH | SEBI records |
| Listed market prices | HIGH | 24-Sep-26 market data |
| Forward valuation | MEDIUM | analyst earnings estimates inherently uncertain |
27. Final investment-relevant synthesis
There is no sensible single “best broker” or “best brokerage stock” conclusion because the businesses are at different stages and offer different exposures.
Business strength
Groww combines scale with unusually strong current share growth.
Zerodha combines scale with extraordinary profitability and cost discipline.
MOFSL has the most diversified financial-services earnings architecture.
The leading bank brokers possess distribution moats that active-client statistics alone understate.
Customer strength
The standout structural change is Groww’s rise to approximately 29% of NSE active clients.
Dhan is the interesting smaller share gainer.
Upstox’s approximately 22% YoY active-client decline deserves particularly close monitoring.
Financial strength
Zerodha remains remarkably profitable.
Groww is producing high profits while continuing to grow.
Kotak/ICICI/HDFC/SBI demonstrate substantial monetization despite smaller active-client bases.
Angel and Dhan show how quickly earnings can respond to changes in derivatives-market economics.
Product and technology
There is no longer a huge product-availability divide between most major platforms.
Differentiation increasingly comes from:
UX + execution + APIs + charts + advisory/research + financing + ecosystem integration + reliability.
Growth profile
Groww currently has the most obvious combination of absolute customer additions and share gains.
Dhan’s percentage growth is notable.
ICICI is quietly gaining share.
Several former digital leaders are shrinking in active-client terms.
Valuation profile
For publicly traded exposure:
Groww carries the strongest explicit growth premium.
Angel One trades on a more moderate earnings multiple but has greater recent earnings/regulatory cyclicality.
MOFSL requires normalization of statutory earnings because investment-book mark-to-market movements can obscure underlying operating progress.
These are fundamentally different valuation propositions.
Most important lesson
The strongest analytical framework for this industry is not:
“Which broker has the most customers?”
It is:
Customer growth × retention × customer quality × monetization × revenue diversification × sustainable ROE × regulatory resilience × technology reliability × valuation.
That combination tells you far more about long-term economics than any leaderboard based solely on account openings or app downloads.
28. Selected source hierarchy
NSE / exchange records
NSE corporate filings were used to verify current listed-company identifiers such as GROWW and ANGELONE.
NSE/SEBI broker directories were used to verify current registrations for Groww, Zerodha, Upstox, Dhan and other brokerage entities.
Company filings / annual reports
Groww FY26 audited figures and business commentary.
Angel One FY26 annual-report disclosures.
MOFSL FY26 investor-relations data.
HDFC Securities FY26 financial information is published through its official financial-information portal.
SEBI / regulatory
Current broker registrations and enforcement orders were checked against SEBI records rather than relying only on broker marketing disclosures.
App stores
Google Play observations were used as digital-distribution signals only—not proxies for active clients.
Current market data
Latest available 24 September 2026 prices and valuation snapshots were used for the listed companies.
Final disclaimer
This report is for informational and educational purposes only. It is not personalized investment advice, a recommendation to buy or sell securities, or a guarantee of future performance.
Financial-services businesses require different analytical treatment from industrial companies. Metrics such as free cash flow, leverage, Altman Z-score and conventional ROIC can be misleading when client funding, MTF, treasury assets and regulated financial liabilities form part of ordinary operations.
Valuation multiples change daily, forward earnings depend on assumptions, and brokerage earnings remain sensitive to market activity, regulation, retail participation and product mix.
The most useful approach is therefore to continue tracking the operating KPIs identified above rather than treating any single 2026 snapshot as permanent.