From "Selling Products" to "Building Ecosystems"! The 5 trillion market boosts ecosystem development

In the past, whoever could launch the first ETF product and concentrate resources would easily seize the first-mover advantage and secure a place in the increasingly homogenized ETF market competition.

However, as the market size continues to expand, product homogenization intensifies, and investor demands evolve, the 5 trillion yuan ETF market can no longer rely solely on the competition model of blockbuster individual products. The industry is transitioning from single product scale expansion to a new phase of systematic operation, shifting from “selling products” to “creating ecosystems.”

Recently, fund companies have been ramping up efforts in building the ETF ecosystem, and the competitive logic of the ETF industry is undergoing a fundamental transformation.

Acceleration of ETF Ecosystem Layout

Publicly offered funds are frequently taking action in building the ETF ecosystem.

Recently, companies such as Harvest Fund, China Merchants Fund, Southern Fund, and Ping An Fund have all made moves, enhancing their product families, creating brand IPs, and upgrading service systems from multiple dimensions, demonstrating their commitment to deepening the construction of the ETF ecosystem.

Harvest Fund is leveraging brand IP to create an immersive investment education ecosystem, pushing the ETF ecosystem to extend deeply toward investors. On March 14, the 2026 Harvest Fund Super Index Festival successfully concluded, creating an immersive index investment carnival for investors through an ETF-themed creative market, outdoor public classes, and online live broadcasts. The index festival crafted a themed interactive experience area, making it closer to investors and breaking the rigid model of traditional investment education, deeply integrating product promotion, knowledge dissemination, and investor experience, providing a replicable model for the construction of the ETF ecosystem in the industry.

On March 13, China Merchants Fund held the 2026 Spring Investment Strategy Conference, bringing together brokers, public offerings, private placements, and third-party platforms to jointly build the “ETF ecosystem,” and released the China Merchants Fund Dividend Family brand.

On March 12, Southern Fund launched the “First Move E-Index” mini-program on Arbor Day, cleverly using the homophonic connection between “tree planting” and “index” to convey the idea of long-term investment and deep companionship. This tool aims to transform the professional complexity of the fund investment process into a convenient and reliable decision-making assistant and long-term companion for users.

On March 20, Ping An Fund held a brand renewal launch conference for Ping An ETF, announcing the start of a new journey in branding ETFs and collaborating with Ping An Securities to build a one-stop ETF investment ecosystem from product creation to trading services.

It is evident that building a distinctive product matrix, enriching tool supply, and enhancing comprehensive service capabilities are becoming the core strategies for publicly offered funds in laying out the ETF ecosystem, with the fundamental aim of strengthening brand recognition and enhancing brand competitiveness.

In the past, ETF products had low recognizability, and investors focused primarily on core indicators such as tracking errors and fees when selecting products; however, today, brand recognition and brand competitiveness have become key variables influencing investment decisions.

Behind this transformation is also the backdrop of the industry’s unified renaming of ETFs. As the deadline for ETF renaming approaches at the end of March, all market ETFs will uniformly adopt the naming format of “core elements of investment targets + ETF + abbreviation of fund manager,” further highlighting the weight of fund manager brands in investors’ decision-making.

From “Selling Products” to “Creating Ecosystems”

Looking back at the development history of the ETF industry, the core of competition in the early stages was undoubtedly the “first-mover advantage” of products; whoever could first launch a single product that aligned with market hotspots could quickly capture market share.

At that time, the overall scale of the domestic ETF market was relatively small, and the types of products were limited, with investor demand being relatively concentrated and singular. For fund companies, as long as they accurately positioned a popular single product, they could achieve rapid expansion of management scale. The significant first-mover advantage of ETFs was particularly evident in some small and medium-sized public fund institutions; for example, the 30-year treasury ETF under Pengyang Fund ranks among the largest in its category; the short-term bond ETF under Haifutong Fund exceeded 80 billion yuan, and the urban investment bond ETF exceeded 30 billion yuan; Guolian An Fund laid out one of the leading semiconductor ETFs in the industry.

However, as the ETF market rapidly expanded, the drawbacks of this single-product selling competition model began to emerge. On the one hand, product homogenization became increasingly severe, with many public funds clustering in popular sectors, and only a few products could secure a place in the competition. For example, since 2024, over 30 China Securities A500 ETFs have been successively established in the market, most of which have faced investor sell-offs since their inception, with only a few products experiencing scale growth, while a large number of products have become “mini funds,” resulting in a waste of market resources. On the other hand, as investors’ asset allocation concepts evolved, they are no longer satisfied with the tool attributes of single products; they require service support and diversified allocation solutions, and single products can no longer meet market demand.

“As the ETF market transitions from incremental competition to stock competition, the first-mover advantage of a single product is no longer sustainable. The real core competitiveness lies in brand influence and comprehensive service capabilities, in whether it can build a complete ecosystem covering products, services, and investment education, achieving a transformation from ‘selling products’ to ‘creating ecosystems,’” a fund evaluator in South China told the Securities Times.

Against this backdrop, the competitive logic of the ETF industry is undergoing a fundamental shift, transitioning from “first-mover advantage” dominated product selling competition to all-encompassing ecosystem competition.

The core of the ETF ecosystem construction lies in establishing a collaborative system involving products, operations, services, and investment education, breaking down barriers between each link to realize full-chain value empowerment. Unlike traditional single-product competition models, ecological layout emphasizes synergy, building on a product matrix, supported by a service system, and connected through investment education dissemination and refined operations. Through comprehensive collaborative interaction, it ultimately achieves a win-win situation for fund companies and investors.

China Asset Management has proposed that they will further open up the ecosystem in the future, collaborating with various partners to build an “index investment community,” ultimately forming synergy at the asset side, capital side, and service side, allowing ETFs to truly become a foundational tool for inclusive finance.

Four Major Trends in ETF Ecosystem Construction

From the current layout of publicly offered fund institutions, the industry is exhibiting four distinct trends in building the ETF ecosystem across the dimensions of products, operations, services, and investment education.

The product ecosystem is upgrading towards combination and differentiation, which is an important carrier for ETF ecosystem construction. Leading public funds are no longer limited to single-product layouts in popular sectors but are focusing on diversified demands, building family-oriented, chain-like, and layered product matrices to achieve differentiated competition.

Compared to a single product, focusing on a differentiated product matrix can better form core competitiveness and achieve precise implementation of ecological value. For example, in branding product combinations, Huatai-PB Fund’s “Dividend Family Bucket” includes various dividend-themed ETFs such as Huatai-PB Dividend ETF, Huatai-PB Low Volatility Dividend ETF, Hong Kong Stock Connect Dividend ETF, Central Enterprise Dividend ETF, and Hong Kong Stock Connect Low Volatility Dividend ETF. The “Dividend Family Bucket” has transcended the category of product collection, becoming a brand representing professionalism, diversity, and reliability in dividend strategy investment.

Guangfa Fund has reconstructed the product power of ETFs by linking originally isolated single products into a complete value chain that resonates with each other, based on the inherent value logic of industries, such as the energy chain and artificial intelligence chain. The Guangfa Fund ETF energy chain product matrix includes upstream ETFs for rare metals, energy, materials, midstream ETFs for electricity, grid equipment, and leading photovoltaic companies, and downstream ETFs for batteries, energy storage batteries, and automobiles. This approach transcends traditional single-product thinking and points to a systematic construction of the industry investment ecosystem. For investors, leveraging a systematic professional understanding allows for convenient participation in this increasingly complex era of ETF investment.

China Asset Management proposed using “Lego thinking” for diversified asset allocation, that is, creating more granular asset categories to meet investors’ diverse financial needs, permeating the entire ETF product layout process, and ultimately forming an ecological matrix covering “all assets, all scenarios.”

ETF managers achieve cross-entity resource integration and business collaboration through multi-party operational interaction. Recently, Ping An Fund and Ping An Securities have collaborated to comprehensively upgrade their ETF brand strategy. Regarding ETF business, Ping An Securities stated that it will work with multiple market entities to build an ETF win-win ecosystem. They are currently creating an open online operating platform that aggregates content and strategy inputs from multiple fund companies, integrates data and tool capabilities from third-party service providers, and actively explores AI applications, creating the “Finance Xiao’an - ETF Investment Expert” intelligent entity, working with ecological partners to optimize ETF advisory services.

The service ecosystem is extending towards “refinement and full process.” Public fund institutions are continuously increasing service investments by building platforms and professional advisory teams to provide investors with full-process services from product selection, portfolio configuration, to risk alerts, lowering the barriers for investors to participate.

In terms of ETF product services, leading ETF companies have almost all constructed service systems by launching exclusive service mini-programs. For example, E Fund launched the “Index Express,” China Asset Management created “Red Rocket,” Harvest Fund introduced “Super Jiabei,” Southern Fund built “First Move E-Index,” Guangfa Fund operates “Index Investment Thermometer,” Fuqun Fund launched “E Together Wealth,” Guotai Fund created “Guotai ETF Toolbox,” Bosera Fund launched “ETF Smart Home,” and Huabao Fund introduced “ETF All Knows,” forming a distinctive matrix of index investment services.

Some of these mini-programs not only provide investors with convenient and efficient ETF service access but also include professional advisory suggestions and market references. In the future, once mini-programs are allowed to enable fund trading functions, it will further amplify the brand value and user stickiness of fund companies.

The investment education ecosystem is transforming towards “scenario-based and engaging.” Currently, publicly offered funds are breaking the rigid model of traditional investment education by integrating ETF knowledge into life scenarios through various forms such as offline events, online live broadcasts, and engaging interactions, enhancing investors’ participation and sense of gain. For instance, the Super Index Festival by Harvest Fund is a typical example of innovation in the investment education ecosystem.

Of course, the branding upgrade of ETFs is not merely a simple name adjustment or the creation of mini-programs; only by achieving coordinated upgrades of products, operations, services, and investment education can a sustainable competitive advantage be built.

“The construction of the ETF ecosystem is not a short-term marketing activity but a long-term layout. Only by deeply binding the brand with product characteristics and service capabilities can investor loyalty be formed,” the aforementioned fund evaluator believes. The ecological creation model centers around investors, addressing not only the issue of “buying” but also the challenge of “continuously buying,” which tests the company’s value output capability and ecological operation ability.

(Edited by: Li Yue)

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