The United States hosts the highest number of millionaires in the world according, nearly 22 million people. China is in second place with just over six million, roughly double the number of the third market, the United Kingdom, revealed a latest report by UBS.
No other market counts in excess of 3 million millionaires. Japan, Germany and France have a millionaire population just below that level, while Canada and Australia count fewer than 2 million people in this cohort.
In percentage terms, these numbers are equally revealing: The United States host 38 per cent of the world’s millionaires, Western Europe 28 per cent and China about 10 per cent, equivalent to the sum of Japan, India, Indonesia, South Korea, Singapore and Thailand, said the report.
Interestingly, the relatively small Netherlands hosts over 1.2 million USD millionaires, approximately as many as Italy and Spain, nearly twice as many as Hong Kong SAR and almost four times as many as Singapore.
The report further highlighted that by 2028, the number of adults with wealth of over USD one million will have risen in 52 of the 56 markets. In at least one market – Taiwan – this increase may reach 50 per cent. Two notable exceptions are expected to be the United Kingdom and the Netherlands.
The Wealth Pyramid
Overall, the past thirty years have witnessed a strong rise in these wealth brackets, driven by the technology industry boom, the expansion of financial markets, real estate price rises, globalization and the growth in emerging market economies, the report highlighted.
The top of the world’s wealth pyramid is made up of just 14 people who collectively own close to USD 2,000 billion. This, however, is not the smallest segment. That title goes to the second-highest, populated by the 12 individuals who own between USD 50 and 100 billion.
The segment below is significantly more populated, being made up of the just over 2,600 individuals owning between USD one and fifty billion, it added.
Much of the upsurge has come from entrepreneurial activity, both in terms of organic growth and stock market listings.
The entrepreneurs who became new billionaires during the 2022/ 2023 period, mostly did so through organic business growth, rather than profiting from a particular event such as an IPO. In fact, about two thirds (65 per cent) of them accumulated their wealth this way.
Below these brackets there is extremely widely defined band that spans between one million and one billion USD, made up of roughly 58 million people, the report further revealed.
The highest proportion of USD millionaires per capita is to be found in Luxembourg, at over 16 per cent of adults, followed by Switzerland at just below 15 per cent and Hong Kong SAR and Australia at almost 10 per cent.
New Zealand, the USA and the Netherlands come close to 9 per cent, as does Denmark. Singapore follows with just over 6.5 per cent.
