Asia Sees Increased Billionaire Population Growth

Sep 5, 2019 | Asia, BIZ, China, GOV, NEWS

BMW 7 Series – Shanghai Exhibition & Convention Center – Hans Johnson

“Crazy Rich Asians” can never be more fitting to describe what is happening in this side of the planet financially. As of last year, Asia has already topped the charts in producing the most billionaires in the world, with North America and Europe trailing closely behind.

 

A Surprising Uptick

The net worth research firm Wealth-X released their census in 2018 showing the region’s population of billionaires shooting up by almost 30 percent to number 784 filthy rich individuals from Asia.

North America, on the other hand, maintained a steady growth of billionaires by 11.2 percent last year to 727 individuals. As a country, however, the US still leads in the billionaire count having a total of 680 rich people. They also happen to have the top dogs such as Amazon’s Jeff Bezos, Microsoft’s Bill Gates, and investment guru, Warren Buffet, to name a few.

The Asian Rich Rush

As one might expect, China has the highest contribution in the tally, coming up with 373 billionaires in total. India followed closely with 100 billionaires, which is slightly down by the previous year’s count. Japan, in its case, was able to produce 33 billionaires. Singapore, meanwhile, is one billionaire-shy away from tying with Japan.

The Entrepreneur report indicated that out of the 10 richest Asians, 9 of them come from the Mainland and Hongkong. The list includes Ma Huateng of Tencent Company and Jack Ma of Alibaba.

A Forbes report cited findings from a separate statistics saying that these new breeds of ultra-rich individuals from Asia are self-made billionaires and not just coming from old money.

 

A Forbes report cited findings from a separate statistics saying that these new breeds of ultra-rich individuals from Asia are self-made billionaires and not just coming from old money.

Looking at age, the statistics also revealed that Asian billionaires are younger than 6 years than their US counterparts and seven years than the Europeans.

Their Golden Goose

Asian billionaires amassed their 10-digit fortunes in industries such as real estate, technology, industrial conglomerates, and in health.

This trend is quite indicative of their cautious attitude when it comes to amassing wealth. A Bloomberg report said that the Asian rich-folks tend to hold on more to their wealth in cash form than in assets.

It is now stipulated that Asia may continue to see an increase not only in the number of its billionaires but also in their individual wealth. It is projected that by the year 2027, China may already be overtaking the United States as the country with the most billionaires.