India is home to over 2 lakh high net worth Individuals (HNIs), shows Capgemini World Wealth Report 2016.
HNIs are defined as those having investable assets of US$1million or more, excluding primary residence, collectibles, consumables and consumer durables.
The population of such individuals has grown by 1.1% from 1.98 lakh in December 2014 to 2 lakh in December 2015, an addition of close to 20,000 HNIs in a year. In 2009, India had only 1.27 lakh HNIs.
In terms of HNWIs wealth, India has recorded a growth of 1.6% i.e. from US$785 billion in 2014 to US$797 billion in 2015.
However, the report finds that the pace at which the population and wealth of HNIs was growing has slowed down. The report has attributed this decline to lackluster performance of asset classes like equity and real estate. “India, the fastest growing HNI market globally in 2014, boasted the region’s broadest GDP expansion in 2015, but declines in its equity and real estate markets hobbled HNI population growth, which plummeted to 1.1%, down from a record-breaking 26.3% a year earlier.”
Globally, United States remains the wealthiest country with close to 44.9 lakh HNWIs, a growth of 2% compared to 43.5 lakh in 2014. It is followed by Japan (27.2 lakh), Germany (11.9 lakh) and China (10.3 lakh). India stood at 12th position in 2015, down from 11th position in 2014 in terms of global HNI ranking.
Meanwhile, the report has forecasted that India and China will continue to be the stand-out stories in Asia-Pacific over the next five to seven years. These two markets represent nearly 10% of global HNI wealth and account for 19% of the global increase in new wealth since 2006, adding US$4 trillion in the past 8 years, states the report.
Also, the report has estimated that global HNWI wealth will cross US$100 trillion by 2025. On the back of growth story of India and China, Asia-Pacific is likely to overtake North America in HNWI population by 2025, estimates the report.
