According to data from the global wealthy list of Hurun Research Institute, Mumbai is now the Asian capital with the most number of billionaires.

This is the first time that the most populated city in India has topped the Asian rankings.

New York (119) is the most wealthy city in the world in 2024, followed by London (97). Hurun reports that Mumbai, the financial hub of India, has made significant progress in Asia, boasting 92 billionaires. Shanghai (87) and Beijing (91) are not far behind.

According to the research, there are 3,279 billionaires in the world now, up 5% from 2023.

Despite losing 155 billionaires from a year ago, China remains at the top of the list with 814 billionaires, according to the country rating.

With 800 billionaires, the United States ranked second, and India ranked third with 271.

“China had a bad year,” the research firm noted. “Wealth creation in China has gone through deep changes these last few years, with the wealth of billionaires from real estate and renewables down.”

China’s richest individual, Zhong Shanshan, who founded and serves as chairman of the massive bottled water company Nongfu Spring, has not changed. This year, Colin Huang, the creator of Pinduoduo, an e-commerce player, vaulted over Tencent CEO Ma Huateng to take second place.

Hurun claims that the United States, which added 109 billionaires in 2023, only has 14 billionaires less than China.

According to the survey, artificial intelligence played a major role in the rise in the number of ultra-wealthy individuals in the United States.

“Whilst [Nvidia CEO] Jensen Huang has grabbed many of the headlines as Nvidia broke through the $2 trillion mark, catapulting him into the Hurun Top 30 as a result, the billionaires behind Microsoft, Google, Amazon, Oracle and Meta have seen significant surges in their wealth as investors bet on the value generated by AI,” the report said.

Elon Musk, the CEO of Tesla, and Jeff Bezos, the creator of Amazon, are the two richest people in the United States, with respective net worths of $201 billion and $190 billion, according to Bloomberg’s Billionaires index.

Taylor Swift, whose net worth is $1.2 billion, was listed by Hurun Research after she started her Eras Tour in March and has since performed in the United States, South America, Australia, Singapore, and Tokyo.

“Over half her fortune stems from royalties and touring, including US$190 million from the Eras tour’s first leg and US$35 million from its concert film. The rest is buoyed by her music catalogue’s value, notably after her first six albums were sold to Shamrock Capital for US$300 million in 2020,” the report said.

With 84 new individuals joining its ultra-rich list, India had the second-highest number of new entries behind the United States.

With a GDP growth of 8.4% from October to December, the South Asian country has the fastest-growing economy in the world at the moment.

Refinitiv statistics revealed that India’s stock market, which is currently valued at over $4 trillion, surpassed Hong Kong’s to become the seventh largest in the world in December.

According to Bloomberg’s index, Mukesh Ambani, the chairman of Reliance Industries in India, is still the richest person in Asia and the eleventh richest person globally, with a net worth of $110 billion.

With a net worth of $97.9 billion, Gautam Adani, the founder and chairman of the Adani Group, is currently three spots behind Ambani, having briefly passed him in January, according to Bloomberg data.

(Source:www.news18.com)