Graph and download economic data for Share of Net Worth Held by the Top 1% (99th to 100th Wealth Percentiles) (WFRBST01134) from Q3 1989 to Q1 2025 about net worth, wealth, percentile, Net, and USA.

As of August 2024, the executive chairman of Samsung Electronics Lee Jae-yong (Jay Y. Lee) was the wealthiest person in South Korea, with a net worth of about 11.5 billion U.S. dollars. His net worth increased from 7.9 billion U.S. dollars from the previous year when he rose from second to first place. Seo Jung-jin, the co-founder of Celltrion, followed with about 7.3 billion dollars. Turbulent times for the wealthy Despite the country's economic recovery from the impact of COVID-19, South Korea’s wealthiest people lost a significant amount of their net worth because of the poorly performing stock market and a weakened currency. Lee Jae-yong overcame the shrinking demand for tech goods and ranked as the wealthiest South Korean, although his net worth the year before was more than one billion dollars higher. The founder of Kakao, Kim Beom-su, had the same net worth as Lee Jae-yong in 2022. However, he only placed fourth in 2023, losing more than four billion dollars in net worth within the year. In October 2022, Kakao faced public outrage and criticism because of a service outage. Conglomerates’ dominating position in the South Korean economy   Although the collective wealth of the 50 wealthiest people in South Korea fell by about 18 percent, conglomerates dominated the market. Samsung Electronics had the highest market capitalization among business groups listed in South Korea, amounting to about 474 trillion South Korean won. The position of the largest businesses represented a significant hurdle for start-ups. South Korea had a low survival rate for new companies compared to the OECD average, discouraging the emergence of new businesses. When asked about the most critical challenges, small- and medium-sized business owners answered that increasing revenue and attracting customers were the most difficult.

In 2022, Giovanni Ferrero, Executive Chairman of the Italian confectionary company Ferrero S.p.A., ranked first in the yearly ranking of Italian billionaires, published by the American business magazine Forbes. With a total net worth estimated at 34.1 billion U.S. dollars, Giovanni Ferrero ranked ahead another Italian entrepreneur - Giorgio Armani, the founder of luxury company, Armani, whose fortune amounted to 6.6 billion U.S. dollars.

A giant in the food industry

The name Ferrero is known worldwide for an enormous amount of branded chocolate and confectionery products. The company was founded in 1946 by Pietro Ferrero, father of Giovanni Ferrero. Ferrero S.p.A. has its headquarters in Piedmont, in the North of Italy, but their products have a strong presence all over the world. The estimated global market share of Ferrero is around 9.5 percent, fourth only to Mars, Mondalez International, and Nestlé.

Italian entrepreneur among the richest persons in the world

When compared to the global ranking of billionaires, the Italian businessman ranked 39th. In fact, Italy ranks among the countries with the largest number of billionaires in the world. In 2021, the title of the richest man on the planet went to Jeff Bezos, the founder and CEO of Amazon. The net worth of this Albuquerque-born entrepreneur was 189 billion U.S. dollars in 2021. The second place was achieved by one of the most visionary businessmen, Elon Musk, whose fortune was estimated at 182 billion U.S. dollars in 2021.