The global indexed investment market has reached unprecedented heights with increasingly sophisticated index systems. By the end of 2025, worldwide ETF assets under management totaled $19.85 trillion. Product innovation shows strategic ETFs, particularly Smart Beta products, leading diversified development, while sector-specific ETFs focusing on technology have gained significant attention. Low-risk categories like fixed-income ETFs continue to attract strong market interest.

Index development priorities include expanding market coverage, diversifying underlying asset types, optimizing existing indices, and enriching application scenarios. Supported by favorable policies and growing demand for indexed investments, the domestic market exhibits a landscape driven by policy initiatives, robust supply and demand, and accelerated innovation. The domestic index industry ecosystem continues to improve, with indexed investments expanding in both scale and quality.

Indexed investment assets have grown substantially, with bond index products showing particularly impressive growth. By the end of 2025, the domestic market hosted 3,433 index-based products with a total value of 7.23 trillion yuan, representing an increase of 858 products and 44.32% growth from the end of 2024. Thematic broad-based indices have spurred new market trends, while products tracking artificial intelligence, cross-border strategies, dividend strategies, fixed income, and multi-asset indices have drawn significant market attention.

Looking ahead, domestic indexed investment faces multiple growth opportunities: policy coordination will help establish a high-quality development framework; broad-based index systems will continue to optimize, enhancing the indexed investment ecosystem; Smart Beta product offerings will expand, driving innovation; and liquidity management products will lead the expansion of fixed-income indexed investments to meet low-risk demand.

Globally, index innovation has recently focused on broadening market coverage, diversifying underlying assets, and expanding existing index frameworks. As index supply and application scenarios grow, index products—especially ETFs—have repeatedly reached new highs in scale. Innovation and demand growth are concentrated in fixed income, Smart Beta, and thematic investing, with stable competitive landscapes and increasingly diverse new product launches.

International index providers have pursued multi-dimensional innovation, expanding underlying asset types and enriching regional index systems. New indices introduced in 2025 included combinations of cryptocurrency and equity assets, such as blends of Bitcoin, Ethereum, or related ETFs with large-cap U.S. tech stocks and crypto-themed listed companies. Emerging market indices have also evolved into multi-tiered systems, with new strategies extending beyond broad-based indices.

Simultaneously, innovation has deepened through extensions and strategic integrations of existing indices. Some 2025 innovations involved modifying established broad-based indices via parameter adjustments or new versions to better match varying risk preferences and application needs. Other innovations combined strategies, such as the FTSE Blossom global index series, which uses sector-neutral methodologies to reduce bias in ESG strategies.

Global ETF market scale and inflows have shown strong growth. By end-2025, total ETF assets reached $19.85 trillion, up 33% from end-2024. Equity and fixed-income ETFs jointly drove this expansion, with thematic and strategic subcategories growing rapidly within equity ETFs. The U.S., Europe, and major Asia-Pacific markets attracted net inflows of $1.5 trillion, $350 billion, and $50 billion, respectively.

ETF listings accelerated globally in 2025, with 2,759 new ETFs launched—a 54% annual increase. Twenty-one new ETFs exceeded $2 billion in assets, and top products approached $10 billion. The U.S. maintained dominance, while Europe leveraged UCITS frameworks to offer differentiated products. ETF delistings declined slightly to 500, reflecting mature market mechanisms and stabilizing product structures.

ESG ETFs have shifted from concept-driven to practice-oriented investing, with assets reaching $776.7 billion by end-2025. Europe led with over $560 billion in ESG ETF assets, supported by evolving regulations. U.S. ESG ETF assets grew to $180 billion amid strong demand and tightening rules, while Asia-Pacific assets surpassed $22 billion with rising transparency frameworks.

Smart Beta ETFs entered an accelerated expansion phase, with 1,548 products totaling $2.88 trillion in assets—a 28% year-on-year increase. Net inflows turned positive at $300.3 billion, indicating renewed investor interest. Value and growth strategies attracted the most capital, while multi-factor and dividend strategies also saw robust inflows.

Thematic ETFs gained favor in technology, climate, and healthcare sectors. By November 2025, global thematic ETF assets hit $467.93 billion, up 49.6% year-on-year, with net inflows of $69.63 billion. Market concentration was high, with iShares, Mirae Asset, and First Trust collectively accounting for 32.4% of assets. AI, big data, innovation technology, and climate themes dominated flows.

Fixed-income ETF growth was led by short-duration and core bond products. U.S. fixed-income ETFs drew record net inflows of $420 billion in 2025, with total assets reaching $2.28 trillion. Ultra-short-term bond ETFs gathered significant inflows as investors sought liquid, low-risk assets. Product innovation included new aggregate bond ETFs and alternative strategy ETFs offering tax-efficient structures.

Domestically, supportive policies have fostered a vibrant environment for indexed investment. By end-2025, China hosted 3,433 index products totaling 7.23 trillion yuan in assets. Equity index products grew to 5.44 trillion yuan, while bond index products expanded to 1.79 trillion yuan. Bond ETFs surpassed 820 billion yuan, led by corporate bond ETFs targeting high-yield and innovation-themed debt.

Key domestic trends include the rise of specialized broad-based indices like the CSI A500, expansion of thematic and cross-border indices, growing interest in dividend and free-cash-flow strategies, and rapid scaling of fixed-income index products. The CSI A500 attracted over 320 billion yuan in assets, while the STAR Market Composite Index products exceeded 23 billion yuan.

Looking forward, domestic indexed investment is poised for further growth through policy coordination, optimization of broad-based indices, enrichment of Smart Beta offerings, and expansion of liquidity management fixed-income products. These developments will help meet rising demand from institutional and individual investors seeking efficient, diversified exposure to Chinese and global markets.