Sufia Tippu
Tuesday, 10 October 2006 16:27
IT Industry -
Market
When CNN or BBC next shoots some footage in India, they might do a re-think about depicting a country with half-naked beggars, hungry children and bullock carts on the road.
According to a survey by Merrill Lynch and
Capgemini, an IT services and business consulting company, more Indians
are getting richer than anybody else in the Asia-Pacific region.
At the end of 2005, the number of high net worth individuals (HNWI) had
risen to 83,000, indicating a 19.3% increase over the previous year.
The survey defines HNWIs as individuals with net financial assets of at
least $1 million, excluding their primary residence and consumables.
Interestingly, almost 7% of these people are 30 years or younger. And
between all of them put together, they hold $290 billion in assets,
representing 3.8% of total HNWI wealth in the region.
Recently, the Boston Consulting Group, said that India has now emerged
as the fastest growing wealth creator in the world. Over the past five
years, the number of millionaires being churned out of India is growing
in excess of 15% each year.
"Robust growth in the Indian economy and a booming stock market were
the key wealth drivers,'' said Pradeep Dokania of DSP Merrill Lynch.
“Over the last three years, we have seen a steady rise in the number of
professionals being added to the HNWI population as against
entrepreneurs.''
In all the markets surveyed, most of the HNWIs were male. However, the
ratio of men to women differed dramatically, depending on the maturity
of the economy. Women accounted for a greater share of the HNWI
population in Hong Kong (31%), Singapore (24%), Japan (30%) than in
South Korea (13%), India (17%) and China (25%).