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(SCHWAB ETF LOGO) Summary Prospectus  March 18, 2011
 
 
Schwab Emerging Markets Equity ETFtm
 
Ticker Symbol:  SCHE
 
 
Before you invest, you may want to review the fund’s prospectus, which contains more information about the fund and its risks. You can find the fund’s prospectus, Statement of Additional Information (SAI) and other information about the fund online at www.schwabetfs.com/prospectus. You can also obtain this information at no cost by calling 1-866-414-6349 or by sending an email request to orders@mysummaryprospectus.com. If you purchase or hold fund shares through a financial intermediary, the fund’s prospectus, SAI, and other information about the fund are available from your financial intermediary.
 
The fund’s prospectus and SAI, both dated December 17, 2010, as amended December 23, 2010, as supplemented March 18, 2011, include a more detailed discussion of fund investment policies and the risks associated with various fund investments. The prospectus and SAI are incorporated by reference into the summary prospectus, making them legally a part of the summary prospectus.
 
Investment objective
 
The fund’s goal is to track as closely as possible, before fees and expenses, the total return of the FTSE All-Emerging Index.1
 
Fund fees and expenses
 
This table describes the fees and expenses you may pay if you buy and hold shares of the fund. The table does not reflect brokerage commissions you may incur when buying or selling fund shares.
 
     
 Shareholder fees (fees paid directly from your investment)
 
    None
     
     
 Annual fund operating expenses
(expenses that you pay each year as a % of the value of your investment)
Management fees   0.25
     
Other expenses   None
     
Total annual operating expenses   0.25
     
 
 Example
 
 
 
This example is intended to help you compare the cost of investing in the fund with the cost of investing in other funds. The example assumes that you invest $10,000 in the fund for the time periods indicated and then redeem all of your shares at the end of those time periods. The example also assumes that your investment has a 5% return each year and that the fund’s operating expenses remain the same. This example does not reflect any brokerage commissions you may incur when buying or selling fund shares. Your actual costs may be higher or lower.
 
 Expenses on a $10,000 investment
 
 
             
1 year   3 years   5 years   10 years
$26
  $80   $141   $318
 
 Portfolio turnover
 
 
 
The fund pays transaction costs, such as commissions, when it buys and sells securities (or “turns over” its portfolio). A higher portfolio turnover may indicate higher transaction costs and may result in higher taxes when fund shares are held in a taxable account. These costs, which are not reflected in the annual fund operating expenses or in the example, affect the fund’s performance. For the period of January 14, 2010 (the date on which the fund commenced operations) to the end of the fund’s most recent fiscal year, the fund’s portfolio turnover rate was 23% of the average value of its portfolio.
 
Principal investment strategies
 
To pursue its goal, the fund generally invests in stocks that are included in the index. The index is comprised of large and mid capitalization companies in emerging market countries, as defined by the index provider. The index defines the large and mid capitalization universe as approximately the top 90% of the eligible universe. As of August 31, 2010, the index was composed of 824 stocks in 23 emerging market countries.
 
It is the fund’s policy that under normal circumstances it will invest at least 90% of its net assets in these stocks, including depositary receipts representing securities of the index; which may be in the form of American Depositary receipts (“ADRs”), Global Depositary receipts (“GDRs”) and European Depositary receipts (“EDRs”). The fund will notify its shareholders at least 60 days before changing this policy. The fund will generally give the same weight to a given stock as the index does. However, when the Adviser believes it is appropriate to do so, such as to avoid purchasing odd-lots (i.e., purchasing less than the usual number of shares traded for a security), to address liquidity considerations with respect to a stock, for tax considerations or when purchasing ADRs, GDRs or EDRs in lieu of local securities, the Adviser may cause the fund’s weighting of a stock to be more or less than the index’s weighting of the stock. The fund may sell securities that are represented in the index in anticipation of their removal from the index, or buy securities that are not yet represented in the index in anticipation of their addition to the

1 Index ownership — “FTSE®” is a trademark of The Financial Times Limited (“FT”) and the London Stock Exchange plc (the “Exchange”) and is used by the fund under license. The Schwab Emerging Markets Equity ETF is not sponsored, endorsed, sold or promoted by FT or the Exchange and FT and the Exchange do not make any representation regarding the advisability of investing in shares of the fund. Fees payable under the license are paid by the Adviser.

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index. The fund does not hedge its exposure to foreign currencies beyond using forward foreign currency contracts to lock in exchange rates for the portfolio securities purchased or sold, but awaiting settlement. These transactions establish a rate of exchange that can be expected to be received upon settlement of the securities.
 
Under normal circumstances, the fund may invest up to 10% of its net assets in securities not included in its index. The principal types of these investments include those that the Adviser believes will help the fund track the index, such as investments in (a) securities that are not represented in the index but the Adviser anticipates will be added to the index or as necessary to reflect various corporate actions (such as mergers and spin-offs), (b) other investment companies, and (c) derivatives, principally futures contracts and forward foreign currency contracts. The fund may use futures contracts and other derivatives primarily to seek returns on the fund’s otherwise uninvested cash assets to help it better track the index. The fund may use forward foreign currency contracts principally to better manage exposure to foreign currency fluctuations when portfolio securities are bought and sold, but are awaiting settlement. The fund may also invest in cash and cash equivalents, and may lend its securities to minimize the difference in performance that naturally exists between an index fund and its corresponding index.
 
Because it may not be possible or practicable to purchase all of the stocks in the index, the Adviser seeks to track the total return of the index by using statistical sampling techniques. These techniques involve investing in a limited number of index securities which, when taken together, are expected to perform similarly to the index as a whole. These techniques are based on a variety of factors, including performance attributes, tax considerations, country weightings, capitalization, industry factors, risk factors and other characteristics. The fund generally expects that its portfolio will hold less than the total number of securities in the index, but reserves the right to hold as many securities as it believes necessary to achieve the fund’s investment objective.
 
The fund will concentrate its investments (i.e., hold 25% or more of its total assets) in a particular industry, group of industries or sector to approximately the same extent that its index is so concentrated. For purposes of this limitation, securities of the U.S. government (including its agencies and instrumentalities), and repurchase agreements collateralized by U.S. government securities are not considered to be issued by members of any industry.
 
The Adviser seeks to achieve, over time, a correlation between the fund’s performance and that of its index, before fees and expenses, of 95% or better. However, there can be no guarantee that the fund will achieve a high degree of correlation with the index. A number of factors may affect the fund’s ability to achieve a high correlation with its index, including the degree to which the fund utilizes a sampling technique. The correlation between the performance of the fund and its index may also diverge due to transaction costs, asset valuations, corporate actions (such as mergers and spin-offs), timing variances, and differences between the fund’s portfolio and the index resulting from legal restrictions (such as diversification requirements) that apply to the fund but not to the index.
 
Principal risks
 
The fund is subject to risks, any of which could cause an investor to lose money. The fund’s principal risks include:
 
Market Risk. Stock markets rise and fall daily. As with any investment whose performance is tied to these markets, the value of your investment in the fund will fluctuate, which means that you could lose money.
 
Investment Style Risk. The fund is not actively managed. Therefore, the fund follows the securities included in the index during upturns as well as downturns. Because of its indexing strategy, the fund does not take steps to reduce market exposure or to lessen the effects of a declining market. In addition, because of the fund’s expenses, the fund’s performance is normally below that of the index.
 
Equity Risk. The prices of equity securities rise and fall daily. These price movements may result from factors affecting individual companies, industries or the securities market as a whole. In addition, equity markets tend to move in cycles, which may cause stock prices to fall over short or extended periods of time.
 
Large-Cap and Mid-Cap Risk. Both large- and mid-cap stocks tend to go in and out of favor based on market and economic conditions. However, stocks of mid-cap companies tend to be more vulnerable to adverse business or economic events than larger more established companies. During a period when large- and mid-cap U.S. stocks fall behind other types of investments — small-cap stocks, for instance — the fund’s large- and mid-cap holdings could reduce performance.
 
Foreign Investment Risk. The fund’s investments in securities of foreign issuers may involve certain risks that are greater than those associated with investments in securities of U.S. issuers. These include risks of adverse changes in foreign economic, political, regulatory and other conditions; changes in currency exchange rates or exchange control regulations (including limitations on currency movements and exchanges); differing accounting, auditing, financial reporting and legal standards and practices; differing securities market structures; and higher transaction costs. These risks may be heightened in connection with investments in emerging markets. Foreign securities also include ADRs, GDRs, and EDRs, which are receipts issued by U.S. and foreign banks that represent shares of foreign-based corporations. Investment in ADRs, GDRs and EDRs may be less liquid than the underlying shares in their primary trading market and GDRs, many of which are issued by companies in emerging markets, may be more volatile.
 
Emerging Markets Risk. Emerging markets may be more likely to experience political turmoil or rapid changes in market or economic conditions than more developed countries. Emerging market countries often have less uniformity in accounting and reporting requirements, unreliable securities valuation and greater risk associated with the custody of securities. It is sometimes difficult to obtain and enforce court judgments in such countries, and there is often a greater potential for nationalization and/or expropriation of assets by the government of an emerging market country. In addition, the financial stability of issuers (including governments) in emerging market countries may be more precarious than in other countries. As a result, there will tend to be an increased risk of price volatility associated with the fund’s

         
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investments in emerging market countries, which may be magnified by currency fluctuations relative to the U.S. dollar.
 
Sampling Index Tracking Risk. The fund may not fully replicate the index and may hold securities not included in the index. As a result, the fund is subject to the risk that the adviser’s investment management strategy, the implementation of which is subject to a number of constraints, may not produce the intended results. Because the fund utilizes a sampling approach it may not track the return of the index as well as it would if the fund purchased all of the securities in its benchmark index.
 
Tracking Error Risk. As an index fund, the fund seeks to track the performance of its benchmark index, although it may not be successful in doing so. The divergence between the performance of the fund and its benchmark index, positive or negative, is called “tracking error.” Tracking error can be caused by many factors and it may be significant.
 
Derivatives Risk. The fund’s use of derivative instruments involves risks different from, or possibly greater than, the risks associated with investing directly in securities and other traditional investments and could cause the fund to lose more than the principal amount invested. In addition, investments in derivatives may involve leverage, which means a small percentage of assets invested in derivatives can have a disproportionately larger impact on the fund.
 
Liquidity Risk. A particular investment may be difficult to purchase or sell. The fund may be unable to sell illiquid securities at an advantageous time or price.
 
Securities Lending Risk. Securities lending involves the risk of loss of rights in the collateral or delay in recovery of the collateral if the borrower fails to return the security loaned or becomes insolvent.
 
Concentration Risk. To the extent that the fund’s or the index’s portfolio is concentrated in the securities of issuers in a particular market, industry, group of industries, sector or asset class, the fund may be adversely affected by the performance of those securities, may be subject to increased price volatility and may be more susceptible to adverse economic, market, political or regulatory occurrences affecting that market, industry, group of industries, sector or asset class.
 
Market Trading Risk. Although fund shares are listed on national securities exchanges, there can be no assurance that an active trading market for fund shares will develop or be maintained. If an active market is not maintained, investors may find it difficult to buy or sell fund shares.
 
Shares of the Fund May Trade at Prices Other Than NAV. Fund shares may be bought and sold in the secondary market at market prices. Although it is expected that the market price of the shares of the fund will approximate the fund’s net asset value (NAV), there may be times when the market price and the NAV vary significantly. You may pay more than NAV when you buy shares of the fund in the secondary market, and you may receive less than NAV when you sell those shares in the secondary market.
 
Lack of Governmental Insurance or Guarantee. An investment in the fund is not a bank deposit and it is not insured or guaranteed by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) or any other government agency.
 
For more information on the risks of investing in the fund please see the “Fund details” section in the prospectus.
 
Performance
 
The fund does not have a full calendar year of performance history. Once the fund has completed a full calendar year of operations a bar chart and table will be included that will provide some indication of the risks of investing in the fund by showing the variability of the fund’s returns and comparing the fund’s performance to the index.
 
Investment adviser
 
Charles Schwab Investment Management, Inc.
 
Portfolio managers
 
Agnes Hong, CFA, a managing director and portfolio manager of the investment adviser, has day-to-day responsibility for the co-management of the fund. She has managed the fund since 2010.
 
Ferian Juwono, CFA, a managing director and portfolio manager of the investment adviser, has day-to-day responsibility for the co-management of the fund. He has managed the fund since 2010.
 
Purchase and sale of fund shares
 
The fund issues and redeems shares at its NAV only in large blocks of shares, typically 100,000 shares or more (“Creation Units”). These transactions are usually in exchange for a basket of securities included in the index and an amount of cash. As a practical matter, only institutions or large investors purchase or redeem Creation Units. Except when aggregated in Creation Units, shares of the fund are not redeemable securities.
 
Individual shares of the fund trade on national securities exchanges and elsewhere during the trading day and can only be bought and sold at market prices throughout the trading day through a broker-dealer. Because fund shares trade at market prices rather than NAV, shares may trade at a price greater than NAV (premium) or less than NAV (discount).
 
Tax information
 
Dividends and capital gains distributions received from the fund will generally be taxable as ordinary income or capital gains, unless you are investing through an IRA, 401(k) or other tax-advantaged account.

         
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(SCHWAB ETF LOGO)

REG58811FLD-03

Schwab Emerging Markets Equity ETFtm; Ticker Symbol:  SCHE

         
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