Investment Trends report shows that the UK online market is still all about IG, but some surprises among the other Top 5 firms.
Research shop Investment Trends has released its annual review of the UK online trading market — covering Spreadbetting, CFD trading and FX — and it contains some interesting findings.
The not-so-surprising part? The market leader in all three categories continues to be IG, which hasn’t skipped a beat after rebranding itself as just IG (and moving its businesses to url IG.com, which it acquired for several million dollars) during 2013. IG did see a small amount of erosion of its market share in Spreadbetting (down to 41% versus 44% when the last survey was taken in July 2012) and FX (29% vs. 32%), but strengthened its CFD market share, up to 34% from 31%.
Before we get to the rest of the survey, we should mention that IG’s market share lead in all three categories remains unchallenged. Other than IG, no other broker broke 10% market share in any category.
The surprise part of the survey?
Well the big winner seems to be Plus500, which as per the above chart came out of nowhere to become a Top 5 CFD broker in the UK, with 5% market share, virtually in line with long term incumbents City Index (also 5%), Saxo UK (6%) and CMC Markets (7%). It seems a combination of a focused market campaign, and a very successful IPO on the London Stock Exchange’s AIM market, have helped build Plus500’s reputation in the UK trading market.
In the FX space there were no surprises, with FXCM (9% market share) and Alpari (8%) maintaining their #2 and #3 positions behind IG.
The survey also emphasized the importance of mobile trading in the UK. According to Investment Trends, 72% of spread betters use a smartphone or tablet (up from 63% in 2012) and another 12% intend to start doing so during 2014. Almost 90% of current ‘mobile traders’ use their mobile device to monitor positions. More than 70% close their positions on a smartphone or tablet, and above 60% open positions. Investment Trends pointed out that these days it is not enough to just let clients trade from their mobile or tablet. They want good functionality and all the bells and whistles available on desktop platforms.
To see the Investment Trends press release for its UK leveraged trading report click here (pdf).
For more on the global Forex industry see the LeapRate-Dow Jones Forex Industry Report.