April 1 (Bloomberg) — Vanguard Group Inc., the third- biggest provider of exchange-traded funds, gained ground on larger competitors this year after gathering ten times as much money into its ETFs than the rest of the U.S. industry combined.

Vanguard attracted $12.6 billion, or more than 90 percent of the money gathered by all U.S. ETFs in the quarter ended March 28, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Clients pulled $17 billion from ETFs run by State Street Corp., including $17.7 billion from the SPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust, known as the Spider.

Vanguard, started almost four decades ago by John C. Bogle, has been able to attract steady deposits from savers by offering low-cost funds, a strategy that helped it become the largest mutual-fund provider. A latecomer to ETFs in part because Bogle was opposed to them, the firm has been narrowing the gap with industry leaders such as BlackRock and State Street, whose products are popular among fickle institutional investors such as hedge funds that seek ways to trade in and out of markets quickly.