AMFI reveals major shift in top 10 SIP categories: Should you make changes to your mutual fund portfolios?

There has been a clear shift in SIP investor preferences over the past five years.

According to the latest AMFI -Crisil Factbook, mid-cap funds replaced large-cap funds as the largest SIP category in March 2026, while small-cap, sectoral, and multi-cap funds also gained share.

Adil Chacko, Executive Director, Anand Rathi Wealth, attributed this to a sharp jump in mid-cap fund inflows. He said performance also supported the shift, with the Nifty Midcap 150 delivering around 17% annualised returns over five years, versus 9.1% for the Nifty 50.

“Hence, investors should ensure that such mid-cap exposure is driven by a long-term asset allocation strategy rather than simply chasing recent performance”, Chacko noted.

Aditya Agarwal, Co-Founder, Wealthy.in, pointed out that “large-cap SIP assets still grew 2.2 times to about ₹ 1.5 lakh crore. However, the overall SIP book grew 3.55 times, causing large-caps to lose six percentage points of share. Mid-caps grew at about 31% annually, helped by stronger returns, a wider universe after the IPO cycle, and better earnings growth”.

Flexi-cap funds maintained a stable SIP share, at 13.1% in March 2021 and 12.8% in March 2026, while multi-cap funds entered the top 10 with a 4.1% share.

Chacko said, “Multi-cap funds offer mid- and small-cap exposure through a single fund, and investors can hold both flexi-cap and multi-cap funds as they follow different strategies.”

However, Agarwal observed that regulation was a key factor. "SEBI's 2020 rule mandated 25% each in large, mid and small caps for multi-cap funds, while the new flexi-cap category led several schemes to migrate,” he said.

Small-cap funds increased their SIP share from 8.3% to 12.1% between March 2021 and March 2026.

Chacko explained, “Inflows rose from ₹ 41,600 crore in FY25 to ₹ 51,800 crore in FY26, while the Nifty Smallcap 250 delivered around 14.5% annualised returns over five years. He suggested limiting small-cap exposure to 20%-25% of the equity portfolio.”

Agarwal cautioned that investors may be taking more risk than they realise. The Nifty Smallcap 250 trades at a P/E of around 34, 22% above its five-year median, while many investors who entered after 2020 have not experienced a prolonged small-cap downturn.

Sectoral and thematic funds increased their SIP share from 5.8% to 8.7%. Chacko attributed this to strong past performance in themes such as defence, auto, PSU banks and infrastructure.

Agarwal said sectoral and thematic funds grew 5.3 times, or 39.6% annually. But he highlighted a key warning: SIP penetration is only about 27% of assets, the lowest among major equity categories.

“This means this is largely lump-sum, NFO-timed money that typically arrives after a theme has already run,” he noted.