BlackRock's iShares topped the ETF net inflow rankings in 2013 with $61 billion, according to a report from research and consultancy firm ETFGI.
The net inflows of iShares narrowly beat out Vanguard's inflows of $60.2 billion. State Street Global Advisors' set of ETFs, SPDR, finished third with $18.3 billion, while PowerShares took fourth place with $15.4 billion.
WisdomTree gathered the fifth largest net inflows with $14.4 billion.
All told, the global exchange-traded funds industry hit a record high of $2.4 trillion in total assets at the end of 2013, due in part to $24.5 billion net inflows in December and positive market performance. At the end of 2013, the global ETF industry had 5,090 ETFs, with 10,172 listings, from 218 providers on 60 exchanges.
A total of 611 ETFs were launched by 102 providers in 2013, which is slightly higher than the 595 new ETFs in 2012 by 104 providers. The 245 ETF closures in 2013 are higher than the 206 ETFs that closed in 2012, and more than three times the 72 that closed in 2011.
In 2013, global ETF assets increased 23% based on positive market performance and net inflows of $242.8 billion, but did not surpass the $265 billion in net inflows in 2012. Equity ETFs gathered a record level of net inflows in 2013 with $240.1 billion, followed by fixed-income ETFs with $22.3 billion, while commodity ETFs experienced a record level of $39.7 billion in net outflows during the year.