The latest wealth report titled, The India 2018 Wealth Report, published by New World Wealth reveals that India is home to 3.30 lakh HNIs. These HNIs hold close to half of the country’s wealth.
The report found that of the total Indian assets of US$8.20 trillion (as of December 2017), about 48%, that is US$3.90 trillion, is in the hands of 3.30 lakh HNIs.
Here are some other interesting facts about India’s wealthy.
Key highlights:
India is the sixth largest wealth market in the world (in terms of total wealth held) after USA, China, Japan, Germany and the UK.
The average Indian individual has net assets of US$6,600.
There are approximately 20,700 multi-millionaires living in India, each with net assets of US$10 million or more.
There are 1,064 centi-millionaires living in India, each with net assets of US$100 million or more.
There are 119 billionaires living in India, each with net assets of US$1 billion or more. India has a particularly large number of billionaires – only two counties worldwide have more billionaires than India - USA and China.
Analysis of 10-year data (2007 to 2017) by New World Wealth reveals that there has been significant increase in both individual and country wealth. India’s total wealth increased substantially from US$3.2 trillion in 2007 to US$8.2 trillion in 2017, a growth of 156%. Rising in sync were the HNI population, which rose by 166% from 1.24 lakh in 2007 to 3.30 lakh in 2017.
Geographical distribution of wealth
Mumbai being the economic hub of India holds around US$950 billion of wealth and 57,600 HNIs. Following Mumbai is Delhi with US$ 554 billion in assets spread amongst 27,900 HNIs. In the third spot comes Bengaluru with US$410 billion and 9,900 HNIs.
Investment preferences
Data shows that HNIs prefer low risk assets such as cash, fixed income, fixed deposits, commodities and real estate (residential) compared to investors in other wealth bands.
At the end of 2017, business interests were the largest asset class for the average HNI living in India (accounting for around 25% of their assets), followed by cash & bonds (23%), real estate (22%), equities (21%), and alternatives (9%). Another investment class, which saw significant HNI participation, is offshore investment, which grew from 15% of their assets in 2007 to 19% of their assets in 2017. The foreign holdings include US$ cash, residential properties and US and Asian equities.
Compared to global terms, equities and real estate allocations of HNIs are quite low.
New World Wealth is a global market research group based in Johannesburg, South Africa. They specialise in ratings, surveys, country reports and wealth statistics.
