Asia Pacific was the region that saw the slowest growth of billionaire wealth globally this year, according to a UBS report, with levels yet to surpass the peak recorded in 2021.
Billionaire wealth in APAC grew 1.8 percent to $3.8 trillion, according to the «UBS Billionaire Ambitions Report 2024». This compares to $6.5 trillion in the Americas (26.9 percent increase), $3.7 trillion in EMEA (17 percent increase) and $13.7 trillion globally (14.2 percent increase).
Not only did APAC record the slowest growth but it was also the only region that did not surpass its last peak in 2021, which saw a total of $4.6 trillion in billionaire wealth.
Mixed Results
Within APAC, the results were mixed. Chinese billionaire wealth (including Hong Kong) fell by 16.8 percent to $1.8 trillion while India saw a 42.1 percent surge to $905.6 billion, making it the country with the third highest amount of billionaire wealth behind the US and China.
«Just as globalization has slowed, so China’s business dynamism has gone from supercharging the trend to diluting it as the country’s common prosperity campaign has taken hold,» the report said.
Long-Term Growth, Population
Nonetheless, Asia was still a bright spot from other perspectives. Firstly, it was the fastest growing region worldwide from 2015 to 2024 in terms of billionaire wealth at 141 percent (compared to 133 percent in the Americas and 88 percent in EMEA). APAC was also the leader in billionaire population at 981 in 2024, despite a drop from 1,091 in 2023.
This was the tenth report by UBS focusing on billionaire wealth and ambitions. It was based on a survey of 82 responses from the bank’s billionaire clients booked in Europe (including Switzerland), Singapore, Hong Kong and the US alongside the data of over 2,500 billionaires across 47 markets tracked by PwC.
