While China recorded a continuous fall in the number of billionaires, India created a new record this year by adding 75 over last year to take the number to 334 billionaires. This increase is reported in the '2024 Hurun India Rich List', which was published on Thursday. The front-runner in the list is Gautam Adani and his family, with a wealth of Rs 11.6 lakh crore, up 95% to become the numero uno.
Ranked at second position is Mukesh Ambani with Rs 10,14,700 crore wealth. He is followed at third position by Shiv Nadar and family, having a net worth of Rs 3,14,000 crore.
For the first time, the number of Indians with an average wealth of Rs 1,000 crore has risen to 1,539-an increase of 220 from last year and a 150% jump over seven years. This increase across promoters of family-run businesses, startups, private equity, active angel investors, next-gen leaders, and film stars.
The roster reported that India has been adding one new billionaire every five days over the past one year. In comparison, while China reduced its population of billionaires by a quarter, India enjoyed a 29% increase to a record 334.
Overall wealth has climbed 46% while the average wealth is up by 25%. There were 1,334 people who either had stable or increased wealth out of which 272 were new comers. On the other side 205 have decreased wealth and 45 had been dropped from the list.
Real estate and industrial products led the growth sectors with new entrants; the former added 142 billionaires. The youngest billionaire on the list is only 21 years old.
Anas Rahman Junaid, Founder and Chief Researcher at Hurun India, said, "India continues to top the charts in the 'Wealth Creation Olympics'. The 2024 Hurun India Rich List has recorded the highest number of billionaires, and each top sector has introduced a new face. This shows the dynamism in Indian entrepreneurship and its strong contribution to the GDP."
This listing is a reflection that the Indian economy is slowly, but surely moving from a services-based to a manufacturing-based economy. Junaid also added that industrial products category entrepreneurs witnessed the highest 47% CAGR-five-year-compound annual growth rate-of their cumulative wealth across sectors. Underpinning this growth is significantly higher government capital expenditure on infrastructure at 133.3 billion dollars now for FY 2024-25, up 11.1% from last year.
Besides, the business climate has been made warm and congenial by over 42 trade agreements and a reduced corporate tax rate of 15 per cent for new manufacturing units. The fallout of these changes in the manufacturing sector has been huge, with entrepreneurs in this field adding a whopping Rs 28 lakh crore to their wealth, accounting for close to 56 percent of the total wealth increase on the list.
Also, about 70% of the billionaires making it to this list have aggregate wealth at near 1.5 trillion dollars-a decent-sized chunk of India's GDP in transition. Also, 64% of the new entrants this year are self-made.
In fact, over the last ten years, Indian representation on the Rich List has risen from 95 last year and only 10 at its inception, to 97 this year.
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