875,000 Chinese Millionaires

Chinese millionaire's (and billionaires) continue to grow in numbers.  Highlights from the prestigious Hurun Rich List were published this October. Hurun Report is widely recognized as the foremost authority in tracking the rapid changes amongst China’s high net worth individuals. “People often aren’t considered truly rich until anointed by Hurun Report…”Wall Street Journal US Edition Jan 2008"  

Below are highlights from the list. To see the full report, click here.

• Today there are 1363 individuals with billion Chinese Yuan (US$150 million),up from 1000 last year and only 24 ten years ago. There are 189 US Dollar billionaires that we know of, suggesting that China today has more billionaires than anywhere else in the world, 400 to 500 billionaires, surpassing even the US.

• China has 875,000 individuals with personal wealth of more than 10 million Yuan (USD 1.5 million) and 55,000 individuals with more than 100 million Yuan, according to the Hurun Wealth Report 2010, released in May. The average Chinese with 10 million Yuan was born in 1970, with 100 million Yuan was born in 1966.

• Most of China’s wealth creation has been driven by its massive urbanization programme, led by property and related industries. The urban population is expected to increase by 300 million people by 2025, according to the Ministry of Construction, laying the foundations for continued growth. 

• The top three hobbies of China’s wealthy are travel, swimming and golf, according to the Hurun Best of the Best Survey2010.Internationally,their preferred travel destinations are the US, France and Australia, while domestically they are Sanya,Yunnan and Hong Kong. They are spending 50% more time on leisure travel, a third now take more than twenty days holiday a year.

Property is still the biggest wealth creator for the Hurun Rich List, with 20.1% listing property as one of their key industries. The percentage has been steadily decreasing, from over half in the first year of 1999 to 23.1% last year. Comparatively speaking, it has been a good year for commercial property, and a difficult year for residential property, mainly due to government attempts to keep property prices down. 

Of all the industries, China’s property tycoons are far and away richer than tycoons from any other industry. The average wealth of the Top Ten Richest Property Developers is more than double the average wealth of the next richest industries of retail and IT. - Hurun Rich List 2010

The pool of qualified domestic buyers for luxury real estate is much smaller than what it used to be. Finding interest from other countries is not only becoming more popular, but a necessity. Language and cultural barriers can be an obstacle but don't let that stop you from reaching the fasting growing luxury class in the world.