The ETP market had a record-breaking year for flows in 2012, attracting $262.7bn in assets globally and growing by 27% compared with the end of 2011. This momentum has carried into January and the industry reached $2 trillion in assets under management on 18 January 2013.

Increased investment in ETPs is being seen in all major regions, as a broad spectrum of institutional, professional and retail investors are using the products to access asset classes in a cost-efficient and effective way, whatever the market conditions. At an asset class level, fixed income ETPs and emerging market equity ETPs set new records for their categories in 2012, recording net inflows of $70.0bn and $54.8bn respectively.

Dodd Kittsley, global head of ETP Research for BlackRock, said: "This is an important and notable milestone for the ETP industry. Hot on the heels of an impressive 2012, the market has continued to grow in the early months of 2013, and we expect this to continue during the rest of this year.

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"The dynamics of the ETP market are changing and developing. As ETPs become better known and understood in different regions and amongst different types of investors, uptake is fast increasing. Added to this, ETP providers are expanding and deepening their coverage of different assets classes and regions, allowing investors to put ETPs to use in new ways and employ them to access areas where they couldn't before, such as emerging market debt. ETPs were once thought of as primarily equity-based funds for institutional investors, and today's milestone proves this is certainly no longer the case.

"It took the ETP industry 19 years to surpass $1trn in assets under management, which it did in 2009, and only a further 4 years to double this. We look forward to reaching and surpassing the next milestone, as more investors come to experience the variety of ways they can use ETPs to invest in the markets."