Retail managed funds were up 3.9 per cent in the December quarter, adding to an increase of 12.4 per cent for the 2012 calendar year.
Plan for Life Actuaries and Researchers' analysis of retail managed funds found total funds under management increased to $549.8 billion.
Gross inflows for 2012 were only up slightly year-on-year by 1.2 per cent, totalling $172.9 billion. However December 2012 saw inflow 13 per cent higher than the corresponding figure in the September quarter.
Plan for Life said "a recovery by underlying investment markets from the choppy, going-nowhere malaise they were suffering from in the previous two years saw all of the leading companies report increases in business.
The top four companies reported strong growth in the December 2012 quarter, similar to growth experienced in the December 2011, with the biggest deviation at 0.5 per cent.
The best performing funds of the year managed to achieve double-digit growth.
BT Financial increased funds by 18.8 per cent over the quarter and 11.1 per cent over the year to $103.4 billion.
AMP's funds grew to $93.4 billion and saw growth of 17 per cent for the December quarter, adding to a 20.2 per cent increase for the year.
Commonwealth/Colonial and National Australia Bank/MLC both saw growth of approximately 15 per cent and built funds to just under $85 billion.
Another report by Plan For Life found the Australian exchange-traded fund (ETF) market has grown to $6.519 billion as of December 2012, with 85 products now in the market.
State Street Global Advisors continues to dominate the market with $2.803 billion in funds under management (FUM) — translating to a market share of 43 per cent.
The next largest provider is iShares with $1.605 billion in FUM (a market share of 24.6 per cent) followed by ETF Securities with $707 million (10.8 per cent).
Vanguard Investments has 9.9 per cent of the ETF market with $643 million in FUM, and BetaShares rounds out the top five with 5.6 per cent of the market and $363 million in FUM.
The dominant product in the Australian ETF market is State Street Global Advisors' SPDR S&P/ASX200, which has FUM of $2.099 billion and a market share of 32.2 per cent.
The ETF Securities ETFS Physical Gold product has the second highest market share with $626 million in FUM and 9.6 per cent of the market, followed by the iShares Core S&P 500 ETF ($391 million and 5.9 per cent of the market).
