The market for index-tracking funds and products - which has exploded in recent years - continues to set new records, figures show.

Exchange traded funds and products hit a new record in gathering $152 billion in net new assets in the first half of 2015, according to UK-based ETFGI’s preliminary report.

At the end of June, the global industry had 5,832 exchange traded funds and products, with 11,295 listings and assets of $2.971 trillion, from 259 providers listed on 62 exchanges in 51 countries. The prior record of assets gathered by ETFs/ETPs was $130 billion in the first half of 2014.

ETFs are typically open-ended, index-based funds, with active ETFs accounting for less than 1 per cent of the market. They can be bought and sold like ordinary shares on a stock exchange and offer broad exposure across developed, emerging and frontier markets, equities, fixed income and commodities. Exchange traded products are similar to ETFs in some ways but do not use an open-end fund structure.

The market for these index-tracking entities has ballooned in recent years as investors and advisors have sought cheap and easy ways to access markets at a time of disenchantment with some more costly investment channels, and due to rising regulatory costs.

“June was a difficult month for most markets around the world. The S&P 500 index ended June down 2 per cent for the month and finished the first half of 2015 up 1 per cent. Market performance in the first half of 2015 was impacted by a number of uncertainties in the first half of 2015: the situation in Greece and the impact on the eurozone, when the Fed will raise interest rates, volatility in the Chinese market and the MERS outbreak in South Korea,” managing partner of ETFGI Deborah Fuhr said.

The ETFs/ETPs listed in the US gathered $103 billion, beating the previous record of $76 billion gathered in the first six months of 2012. The Europe-listed ETFs/ETPs gathered $40 billion, beating the $32 billion gathered in the first half of 2014.

Year to date, exchange traded funds and products have seen net inflows of $152 billion. Equity ETFs/ETPs gathered the largest net inflows with $101.7 billion, followed by fixed income ETFs/ETPs with $35.4 billion and commodity ETFs/ETPs with net inflows of $4.2 billion.

In the first half of 2015 iShares gathered the largest net ETF/ETP inflows with $52.1 billion. Second largest was Vanguard with $44.8 billion, followed by WisdomTree with $20.3 billion and DB/x-trackers with $19.1 billion net inflows.

In June, the exchange trade funds and products listed globally gathered net inflows of $24.8 billion. Equity ETFs/ETPs gathered the largest net inflows with $27.9 billion, while commodity ETFs/ETPs had net outflows of $479 million and fixed income ETFs/ETPs experienced net outflows of $4.0 billion.

iShares and Vanguard tied in gathering the largest net ETF/ETP inflows during June, with $8.1 billion, followed by Yuanta with $3.3 billion net inflows.