India, with the help of with 31 new billionaires, climbed back to the third spot on the Hurun Global Rich List 2018 released by the Hurun Report on Wednesday. India had lost the third place to Germany last year.
A total of 2,694 billionaires from 69 countries and regions are included in the Hurun Rich List. Among them, 567 billionaires are new entrants, with 210 from China.
China tops the list with 819 billionaires in 2017, beating the United States, which is placed second with 571 billionaires.
The world added 437 billionaires last year, which is more than one billionaire a day, while China made four new billionaires a week, said the study.
The survey said 2017 was a good year for India and the record performance of the Indian stock market helped the country reclaim the third position with 131 billionaires. "This list would be 170 if we were to consider Indian-origin billionaires. Pharmaceuticals led with 19 billionaires, followed by Automobile and Components with 14 and Consumer products with 11," said the report.
At least 31 billionaires migrated from India, with the UAE, the UK, and the US as preferred destinations.
The combined wealth of the Indian billionaires increased by 49 percent and their average age is 64. Mumbai tops the list of Indian cities with most billionaires from the country, and is followed by New Delhi.
Beijing is the "Billionaire Capital of the World" for the third year running, followed by New York. Greater China is home to one-third of the top 30 cities with most billionaires.
Only three countries — China, the US and India — had two or more cities in the top 30. Mumbai with 55 billionaires and, New Delhi with 29 helped India achieve this distinction.
Warren Buffett lost the top spot in the list of 2,694 billionaires in the world to Jeff Bezos, founder, chairman, and chief executive officer of Amazon. Bill Gates (3) Mark Zuckerberg (4), Bernard Arnault (5), Amancio Ortega (6), Carlos Slim Helu (7), Larry Ellison (8), Larry Page(9) and Michael Bloomberg (10) are in the top 10.
Reliance Industries Limited chairman Mukesh Ambani (19), Dilip Shanghvi from Sun Pharma (87), Adani Enterprises' Gautam Adani (87) and HCL's Shiv Nadar (98) are featured in the Top 100 billionaires in Hurun Global Rich List 2018.
"A boom in China, a weak dollar coupled with us tax cuts has driven billionaires to break new records," says Rupert Hoogewerf, Hurun Report chairman, and chief.
He continues, "The US dollar depreciated 16 percent against the euro, 12 percent against the British pound, 10 percent against the Chinese yuan and 6 percent against the Indian rupee. Global economic growth was at 3 percent last year, the fastest rate since 2011 and a significant acceleration compared with 2.4 percent the previous year."
The report found technology as the key source of wealth. Real estate overtook manufacturing for second place. Investments was in fourth place. The Hurun report marked manufacturing and food and beverage as the fastest-growing sectors for billionaires in 2018.
