Mumbai: Knight Frank's Wealth Report 2022 shows that the COVID pandemic and its economic impact did not affect the Indian rich. The pandemic has been devastative not only for people's health but for the business community across the world.
But the report says the population of billionaires in India grew by 24 in 2020-21 alone, to become the third country in the world with the highest number of billionaires.
India's legacy in billionaire market does not end there. India is high in number of individuals whose net worth is over $30 million to be called ultra high-net worth individuals (UHNWI). The individuals whose net worth is over $1 million fall in the high-net worth individual category.
The 2022 report also shows that, in India, the number of UHNWIs grew by 11% YoY (year-on-year) in 2021, and that this population is predicted to shoot up by 39% in the next five years. Further, a significant number of UNHWIs in India — about 69% of them — expect their wealth to grow by over 10% in 2022.
Hyderabad is the second city after Mumbai that accommodate the largest number of UHNWIs. Bengaluru, Delhi and Chennai are in line following Hyderabad.
In Bengaluru, the UNHWI population is expected to grow by a whopping 88.9% to 665 by 2026, while Hyderabad is expected to have 728 ultra wealthy individuals by 2026.
Further, over the next five years, Knight Frank's report predicts that the global UHNWIs population will grow by a further 28%, with Asia and Australasia (+33% each) seeing the largest growth, followed by North America (+28%) and Latin America (+26%).
The number of UHNWI population in India is expected to grow by 39% between 2021 – 2026, with 19,006 people expected to have net assets of USD 30 million or more by 2026.