The group’s research team said $262.7bn flowed into ETPs in 2012, marking a 27% growth of total AUM year-on-year.
This momentum has continued and pushed the market total beyond $2trn on 18 January, BlackRock said.
All major regions have seen increased investment in ETPs, with both institutional, professional and retail investors increasingly looking to the passive instruments as an alternative to active management.
Last year fixed income and emerging market equity ETPs did particularly well, recording net inflows of $70bn and $54.8bn respectively.
Increased investment in ETPs is being seen in all major regions, as a broad spectrum of institutional, professional and retail investors are using the products to access asset classes in a cost-efficient and effective way, whatever the market conditions. At an asset class level, fixed income ETPs and emerging market equity ETPs set new records for their categories in 2012, recording net inflows of $70.0bn and $54.8bn respectively.
Dodd Kittsley, global head of ETP Research for BlackRock, said: “It took the ETP industry 19 years to surpass $1trn in assets under management, which it did in 2009, and only a further 4 years to double this. We look forward to reaching and surpassing the next milestone, as more investors come to experience the variety of ways they can use ETPs to invest in the markets.”
Another ETP firm, Boost ETP said the major engine of growth remained in the US, but added that Europe was seeing a similar trend, which should grow as penetration of the products into the retail market continued.
