Vanguard's emerging-market ETF collected $19.3 billion in deposits in 2010, compared with $2.3 billion for the BlackRock offering, Morningstar data show.
That success "speaks to the fact that investors value low- cost portfolios," Joel Dickson, a principal at Valley Forge, Pa.-based Vanguard, said in a telephone interview.
Vanguard charges an average of 17 cents per $100 on its ETFs, less than one-third of the industry average, Morningstar data show. BlackRock cut the fee on its emerging-market ETF to 69 cents per $100 from 72 cents, the company disclosed in filings this month.