With 111 billionaires, India 3rd on rich list

Shubhadeep Choudhury

Tribune News Service

Bengaluru, February 24

India now has more number of billionaires than it ever had, earning the country third spot after China and the US in the Hurun Report released today.

With 111 billionaires, 14 more than last year’s 97, India featured ahead of Germany, the UK and even Switzerland. Majority of the billionaires are from manufacturing sector, followed by pharma and technology.

Combined wealth of the Indian billionaires shot up by 16 per cent to $308 billion over last year. Mukesh Ambani ($26 billion, rank 21st in the global scale) was ranked the “richest Indian” and Mumbai was found to be the city where most Indian billionaires lived. The average age of Indian billionaires, according to the report, is 64.

The Hurun Report Inc, which was established in 1999 by British accountant Rupert Hoogewerf and has grown into a leading media and research house based in Shanghai, ranked Bill Gates ($60 billion) as the richest man on Earth followed by Warren Buffeet ($68 billion). Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg ($47 billion), who is only 31 years old, is the youngest on the list of the world’s top 10 billionaires, eight of whom are from the US.

In terms of number of billionaires, China with 568 billionaires has beaten the US (535 billionaires). “The Big Two are China and the US, amounting to almost half of the billionaires on the planet,” the report said.

Also, Beijing has become the new “billionaire capital of the world”, snatching the title from New York for the first time. Hundred of the “Hurun Billionaires” live in the Chinese capital, 32 more than the last year.

Thirty-five per cent of new billionaires reside in Asia. India’s e-commerce stars Sachin Bansal and Binny Bansal, co-founders of Flipkart, feature on the list of people who recently became billionaires.