CMC’s ‘two million traders’ headline counts unique logins, including partner platforms

CMC Markets says it serves “more than two million traders and investors.” The footnote beneath that headline defines the population more narrowly and more broadly at the same time: it is based on over two million unique user logins across CMC’s trading and investing platforms, including partner platforms, as of November 2025. A unique login is not automatically a funded account, an active customer, a legal client relationship or a person counted once across every connected platform.[1]

The disclosure does not show that the two-million claim is false. CMC publishes the definition in its results, and a login can represent a genuine user of technology the group provides. The investigative finding is that the marketing noun—traders and investors—rests on a technology-access denominator that includes partners. That choice can materially change comparisons with brokers reporting funded accounts, monthly active users or direct customers.[1]

The footnote changes the object being counted

CMC’s preliminary results for the year ended 31 March 2026 state that the group is trusted by more than two million traders and investors globally. The associated note says the figure is based on unique user logins across the group’s trading and investing platforms, including partners, measured in November 2025. The note does not say that all users placed a trade, held assets, generated revenue or had a direct contract with CMC.[1]

“Unique” also needs a boundary. A system can make a login unique within one platform while the same individual holds credentials on another. Partner businesses may maintain their own customer identities, and CMC may not possess a universal person-level key that can deduplicate every channel. The public note does not explain whether uniqueness is measured by username, account, email, customer record, device, legal person or cross-platform identity resolution.[1]

That ambiguity matters because one person can be several economically different units. A retail investor might have an investing account and a leveraged-trading account; a partner customer could access CMC infrastructure under another brand; a corporate or joint account may have several authorised users; and a dormant customer can still have valid credentials. Counting logins answers how many distinct access records exist under the chosen rule, not necessarily how many individual active investors exist.[1]

Partner platforms are central to the number

CMC’s strategy increasingly combines direct retail services with institutional and business-to-business infrastructure. The group identifies partnerships with major financial brands and says the majority of its income now comes from institutional and B2B activities. Including partner-platform logins can therefore be a legitimate measure of the reach of its technology. It is less suitable as a direct-customer count unless the relationship is clearly labelled.[1]

The economic link can also differ by partner. CMC may provide execution, custody, market connectivity, platform technology or a combination, while the partner owns the customer relationship and brand. A user can generate revenue for CMC without knowing CMC as their primary broker. Conversely, a login can exist without producing material revenue in the period. The phrase “traders and investors” compresses those different relationships into a single population.[1]

This is not a semantic concern only. Customer counts are used to calculate revenue per user, assets per account, acquisition efficiency and market share. Dividing CMC’s group net operating income by two million would imply that every login belongs in the revenue denominator. That would be inappropriate if a large portion consists of partner users under wholesale pricing, duplicate individuals, inactive credentials or access to services that do not carry the same economics as direct retail accounts.[1]

The Westpac transfer shows how quickly the denominator can grow

CMC’s announced Westpac partnership illustrates the scale of B2B distribution. The group said the migration would bring approximately A$39 billion of assets under administration across about half a million share-trading accounts, with launch expected within the following twelve months. A simple division gives roughly A$78,000 of assets per account. That is an account-level ratio, not a customer average, because one customer may hold more than one account and balances vary widely.[1]

The half-million accounts were an announced future migration, not evidence that they were already included in the November 2025 two-million-login figure. The timing distinction is essential. Combining a future account transfer with a historical user headline would inflate current scale. Once launched, however, partner access could increase CMC’s login count sharply even if the customers continue to identify primarily with Westpac.[1]

The partnership also shows why “account,” “login,” “customer” and “asset owner” should remain separate. Westpac can own or manage the customer relationship, CMC can provide brokerage infrastructure, a customer can hold several accounts, and several authorised people can access one account. Each count is useful for a different operational question. None should silently substitute for another.[1]

The financial results do not resolve the user denominator

CMC reported net operating income of £392.6 million and profit before tax of £101.3 million for the financial year. Those figures demonstrate a substantial profitable business, but they do not reveal the revenue attached to each class of login. The release separates strategic channels and products but does not publish a bridge from the two-million user measure to funded, active, direct and partner populations.[1]

A useful bridge would start with legal customers, then show accounts, unique human or entity users, funded accounts, users active in the past month or year, direct retail relationships and partner-platform users. It would also disclose the deduplication rule and whether closed or dormant credentials remain in the count. That table would let investors compare CMC with peers without forcing unlike denominators into a ranking.[1]

The measurement date should be updated consistently as well. The user count was stated as of November 2025 inside results published in June 2026. A six- or seven-month lag may be reasonable for verification, but comparisons with current revenue or later partner launches should preserve the date. A user count can change through acquisition, migration, deactivation and technical consolidation even without organic customer growth.[1]

What the claim proves—and what it does not

The footnote proves that more than two million unique login records existed under CMC’s counting method across its own and partner platforms at the stated date. It supports the proposition that the group’s technology reaches a broad user base. It does not establish two million funded accounts, two million people who traded during the year, two million direct CMC customers, or two million individuals counted once across all channels.[1]

Nor does inclusion of partner users make the measure illegitimate. Technology and execution providers create real economic value through intermediated distribution. The concern is comparability and wording. A platform-reach metric should be presented as platform reach; a direct-customer metric should identify direct customers. When the headline uses a human activity label and the footnote uses login records, readers need the bridge.[1]

The result could prove more robust if CMC confirms that it deduplicates people across platforms, excludes dormant credentials and limits the count to users who accessed a trading or investment service within a defined recent period. It would prove less comparable if uniqueness is only local to each partner system or if any valid historical credential remains indefinitely. The current public note does not settle those questions.[1]

The defensible conclusion

CMC’s two-million scale claim is grounded in a disclosed measure, but the measure is not the one many readers will assume. It counts unique logins, including partner platforms, rather than explicitly counting funded, active or direct customers. That distinction is especially consequential as CMC expands through large partnerships capable of adding hundreds of thousands of accounts without creating the same economics or legal relationship as an organically acquired direct user.[1]

The appropriate next step is not to discard the headline; it is to disaggregate it. CMC should report direct customers, partner users, accounts, active users, funded accounts and cross-platform deduplication separately. Until that bridge exists, the two-million figure is best understood as a measure of technology access and distribution reach—not a clean denominator for customer economics or a like-for-like broker ranking.[1]

The date and unit should travel with every use of the claim. ‘More than two million’ describes unique logins counted across a stated platform network as of November 2025; it is not necessarily a current active-client figure and it does not show how many legal customers, funded accounts or direct CMC relationships existed. A user who accessed more than one platform may or may not be deduplicated across the whole network, depending on the company’s method. Those boundaries do not make the measure valueless. They define it as a reach metric whose comparability depends on the same login, partner and time-window rules being used elsewhere.[1]

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