In 2023, there were nearly 22 million people with a net worth of over one million U.S. dollars in the United States, which put the country on the top of the ranking. China was ranked second in that year, with more than six million individuals with wealth exceeding one million U.S. dollars. The United Kingdom followed in third with around three million millionaires.

The statistic shows the number of millionaire households in the United States from 1997 to 2015, by net worth. In 1997, about 5.3 million households had a net worth of 1 million U.S. dollars or more, excluding primary residence.

In 2021, there were around about 7.4 million high net worth individuals individuals in North America. High net worth individuals are those with financial assets worth at least one million U.S. dollars.

In 2023, roughly 1.49 billion adults worldwide had a net worth of less than 10,000 U.S. dollars. By comparison, 58 million adults had a net worth of more than one million U.S. dollars in the same year. Wealth distribution The distribution of wealth is an indicator of economic inequality. The United Nations says that wealth includes the sum of natural, human, and physical assets. Wealth is not synonymous with income, however, because having a large income can be depleted if one has significant expenses. In 2023, nearly 1,700 billionaires had a total wealth between one to two billion U.S. dollars. Wealth worldwide China had the highest number of billionaires in 2023, with the United States following behind. That same year, New York had the most billionaires worldwide.

As of 2019, 84 percent of millionaires in the United States had a net worth of between one million and two and a half million U.S. dollars. On the other end of the scale, 0.01 percent of millionaires had a net worth of over 500 million U.S. dollars.

As of November 2022, a combined value of 4.48 trillion U.S. dollars was held by billionaires living in the United States. While U.S. billionaire wealth has seen a drop over the last year, it is still more than 1.5 times the amount it was at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Iceland was the country with the highest rate of millionaires worldwide in 2022, with more than 20 percent of the adult population owning assets worth more than one million U.S. dollars. Luxembourg followed behind with 16 percent of the population being millionaires, with Switzerland in third.

This statistic shows the number of millionaire households in the United States from 2006 to 2020. As 2020, the number households with a net worth of one million U.S. dollars or more (excluding primary residence) stood at 11.6 million, up from 11 million in 2019.

In 2024, an estimated 461,000 people in South Korea owned financial assets worth one billion South Korean won or more. This was a year-on-year increase of around one percent. The rise in stock prices was, among other things, the key reason for the jump in the wealth of these millionaires. High-net-worth-individuals (HNWIs) in South Korea High-net-worth individuals (HNWI) refer to persons with a net worth of over one million U.S. dollars including their primary residence. The number of HNWIs in South Korea has risen steadily in recent years. While there were about 481 thousand HNWIs in 2016, the number exceeded 830,000 in 2021 and is expected to double the 2015 figure by 2026. South Korea was among the top 15 countries with the most ultra-high-net-worth individuals (UHNWIs), whose net assets, including their homes, exceed 50 million U.S. dollars. Who are the wealthiest people in South Korea? In recent years, South Korea has also seen an increase in the number of billionaires, with the capital Seoul being one of the leading cities in the world with the most resident billionaires. With a net worth of around 11.5 billion U.S dollars, Lee Jae-yong (Jay Y. Lee), executive chairman of Samsung Electronics and son of the late Samsung chairman Lee Kun-hee, was the wealthiest person in South Korea as of 2024. Seo Jung-jin, the founder of South Korea's biopharmaceutical company Celltrion, followed and led the wealth ranking along with Samsung boss Lee.

In 2023, 225,000 individuals with net assets of at least 30 million U.S. dollars were residing in the United States, by far the highest number of any country. By comparison, China, which had the second highest number of ultra high net worth individuals (UHNWIs), had less than 100,000 individuals with assets amounting to 30 million U.S. dollars or more.Place of residence of ultra high net worth individuals The residency of almost half of the world’s ultra high net worth individuals in the United States explains the dominance of North America in regard to the number of ultra high net worth individuals by region. Hong Kong was the city with the most UHNWIs in 2022, followed by New York, London, and Los Angeles. Source of wealth and gender differences A majority of the world's UHNWIs are self-made. However, looking at billionaires, there is a clear difference between men and women; whereas a majority of billionaire men were self-made, a majority of the women had inherited their fortune.

Africa was home to 135,000 millionaires as of 2023. The number of high net worth individuals (HNWIs), each with net assets of one million U.S. dollars or more, slightly increased by nearly two percent compared to the previous year. Total private wealth in Africa amounted to 2.5 trillion U.S. dollars in 2023, slightly higher than in 2022. The wealth value measured referred to assets, such as cash, properties, and business interests, held by individuals living in each country, less liabilities.

In 2023, by far the highest number of individuals with net assets of at least 30 million U.S. dollars worldwide were residing in North America, reaching over 250,000 people. Asia recorded the second highest number of UHNWIs in the world with over 165,000 individuals.A small share owns vast sums of wealthThe vast majority of global wealth is concentrated in the hands of a few people. Only one percent of the global population owns assets worth more than one million U.S. dollars. The richest people in the world are Elon Mask, Jeff Bezos, and Bernard Arnault. When it comes to women, Francoise Bettencourt Meyers led the ranking of the most affluent women worldwide. The wealth of over 70 percent of UHNWIs was self-made. Where UHNWIs live and where they leave Unsurprisingly, as North America is the world region with the highest number of UHNWIs, the United States is the country with the highest UHNWI count. However, Hong Kong, special administrative (SAR) region in China, is the city with the highest number of UHNWIs. Nevertheless, China was the country that recorded the highest outflux of UHNWIs in 2022.

The statistic shows the number of millionaires in mainland China from 2015 to 2023, as estimated by a research institute in China. According to the report, there were 4.15 million millionaires owning assets worth over six million yuan - roughly equivalent to one million U.S. dollars - and 1,69 million millionaires with personal wealth of over ten million yuan in mainland China in 2023.

A multi-millionaire is defined as someone owning 10 million U.S. dollars or more. It was forecasted that there would be almost 18 thousand individuals in Australia defined as multi-millionaires by 2026. This is in line with the country’s growing economy over the years as well as the growing wealth inequality that was becoming a cause for concern in the island nation.

Distribution of the wealthy

As a rich country with plenty of natural resources and a high Human Development Index, Australia had always had a large number of high net-worth individuals or HNWIs. There were over ten thousand millionaires including a couple dozen of billionaires, with these figures expected to grow significantly over the next few years.

Income inequality

Despite the increase of wealth and economic growth, there was a concern at the level of poverty and homelessness due to the rising wealth inequality nationally. The number of homeless people living in Australia had only been increasing with more than a hundred thousand people currently without shelter. Furthermore, most of the wealth was being pushed from the country to the cities, affecting the livelihood of those living in the countryside or outback.

As of 2024, cash accounted for the largest portion of total assets for high net worth investors. In contrast to family offices where cash made up 11 percent of assets under management (AUM). Alternatives were the largest assets class among family offices, accounting for over 40 percent of AUM allocation.

As of 2020, New Jersey had the highest share of households with a net worth of one million or more U.S. dollars in the United States, followed by Maryland, Connecticut, Massachusetts, and Hawaii.

As of September 2023, Amazon's founder Jeff Bezos was the world's richest internet billionaire, with an estimated net worth of 114 billion U.S. dollars. The chief technology officer of the computer software company Oracle, Larry Ellison, ranked second, with a fortune of 107 billion U.S. dollars. Bill Gates, the co-founder of tech giant Microsoft, ranked third in the ranking of internet billionaires, with a net worth of 104 billion U.S. dollars.

Bright future for tech industry

Standing out as one of the most profitable and fastest-growing industries, the tech sector's future looks bright as global spend is forecasted to rise annually until at least 2023, hitting nearly 4.6 trillion U.S. dollars that year. Most of this will come from investment in communication services, followed by IT services. In the aftermath of the global coronavirus pandemic, the software industry was also one of the more resilient tech branches, with approximately 6.6 percent growth forecast in October 2021, second only to the PC/Tablet category.

Amazon and Alphabet are top market players

In the realm of software, Amazon and Alphabet currently top the list of largest internet companies in the world by market capitalization. Starting in 1994 as an online bookstore, the internet giant founded by Jeff Bezos has since grown to offer grocery services, media streaming, e-books and smart home technology, among other products, and is now a leading e-commerce platform worldwide. Meanwhile, Alphabet, the Google brand's parent company, has also risen to be one of the most prominent players on the internet, primarily due partly to noteworthy acquisitions such as YouTube and the Android operating system, which now powers over 70 percent of the world's mobile devices.

In 2021, there were around 70 thousand millionaires living in Malaysia. This figure is projected to increase to more than 130 thousand in five years’ time. Should the Malaysian economy continue its less than robust growth, however, this figure might have to be revised.

A positive outlook for the wealthy in Malaysia
2020 was not a good year for both the high-net worth individuals and ultra-high net worth individuals (UNHWI) in Malaysia. Compared to 2019, most were optimistic that the global economy in that year was more conducive to preserving and growing their clients' wealth as a majority of private bankers and wealth advisers in Malaysia reported increases in client wealth in that year. However, the HNWIs and UNHWIs live a life far removed from the average Malaysian. In 2019, only 3.9 percent of adults in Malaysia have wealth exceeding 100 thousand U.S. dollars. By comparison, this figure was 49.4 percent in neighboring Singapore.

Excesses of the ultra-rich
In the past year, the Malaysian public has been exposed to the excesses of the rich and powerful through the 1MDB scandal. This saw the then Prime Minister Najib Razak being accused of embezzling from state funds. The media widely publicized the seizure of luxury handbags belonging to Najib’s wife, each of which costs was more than the average Malaysian’s monthly salary. The public’s distaste for Najib’s extravagant lifestyle was so apparent that when his election rival, Mahathir Mohd, was photographed wearing four-dollar sandals, his picture went viral on social media.

In 2021, the number of high net worth individuals (HNWIs) in China amounted to over nine million. The number of HNWIs in the country was projected to increase significantly, reaching more than 17 million by 2026. In comparison, Southeast Asia's most populous country Indonesia had just over 82 thousand high net worth individuals in 2021. China also had the highest number of ultra high net worth individuals (UHNWIs) in APAC that year.

South Africa was home to the highest number of millionaires in Africa as of 2023. The country had 37,400 high net worth individuals (HNWIs), corresponding to roughly one-third of the total number of millionaires on the continent. Second, in rank, Egypt counted 15,600 HNWIs. According to the source, approximately 135,000 HNWIs lived in Africa, each with one million U.S. dollars or more net assets, excluding government funds. The wealth value refers to assets such as cash, properties, and business interests held by individuals living in a country with fewer liabilities. The rich in Africa Compared to 2020, the number of African millionaires increased by nearly nine percent. This means that 11,000 people joined the group of individuals with minimum net assets of one million U.S. dollars. The number of centi- and multimillionaires has increased as well. In 2022, the Nigerian Aliko Dangote held the title of the wealthiest person in Africa. Founder and chairman of Dangote Cement, the largest cement producer in the whole African continent, the billionaire also owns salt and sugar manufacturing companies. His net worth is estimated at nearly 15 billion U.S. dollars. Trillions of U.S. dollars in riches Total private wealth in Africa amounted to 2.1 trillion U.S. dollars in 2021, a slight increase from 2020. That year, the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic had led to job losses, drops in salaries, and the closure of many local businesses. Compared to other African countries, South Africa concentrated the largest private wealth. Egypt, Nigeria, Morocco, and Kenya completed the leading wealth markets. The five nations accounted for over 50 percent of Africa’s total wealth in 2021.