With 31 new Indians on the list, India comes third after China and USA on Hurun’s Global Rich List 2018. However, China with 819 names and USA with 571 are way ahead in terms of number of billionaires. China, has catapulted in the competition, leaving its competitor USA far behind. Last year the numbers were neck-to-neck at 534 and 535 billionaires respectively.
Rupert Hoogerwerf, Chief Researcher and Chairman of Hurun Report said that this has been a period of great entrepreneurship in China, while it has been good for India as well. India added these 31 billionaires in the past year due to a record performance by Indian stock markets.
The Hurun Rich List 2018 ranked 2,694 billionaires from 68 countries and 2,157 companies. The total wealth of these billionaires increased by 31% to USD 10.5 trillion – that is 13.2% of the global GDP.
Although Mukesh Ambani remains the richest Indian, one of the Indians to see a massive growth in wealth is Gautam Adani whose wealth doubled and grew by 109% to USD 14 billion. Ambani’s wealth soared by 73% to USD 45 billion. Adani is in the 98th spot, while Ambani is ranked 19th.
Three of the youngest billionaires in India are Shradha Agarwal, 32, of Outcome Wealth, Divyank Turakhia, 35, of Directi and Vijay Shekhar Sharma, 39, of Paytm.
The report mentioned that the most number of billionaires – 19 – in India were produced by the pharmaceuticals sector, followed by automobiles with 14 and consumer products with 11.
The total number of Indians on that list is 131, but if Indian-origins are considered then the tally would move up to 170.
Lakshmi Mittal, with USD 18 million is the second-richest Indian on the list. The Godrej Group has added 5 billionaires to the list, while Hero Honda and Asian Paints have added three each.
The richest person in the world is Jeff Bezos of Amazon, with USD 123 billion, followed by Warren Buffett of Berkshire Hathaway with USD 102 billion, Bill Gates of Microsoft with USD 90 billion, Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook with USD 79 billion, Bernard Arnault of LVMH with USD 78 billion, Amancio Ortega of Inditex with USD 73 billion, Carlos Slim Helu and family of America Movil with USD 67 billion, Larry Ellison of Oracle with USD 54 billion, Larry Page of Google with USD 50 billion and Michael Bloomberg of Bloomberg with USD 49 billion.
The report also stated that more than one billionaire was created every day last year, out of which 4 per week were from China.
