BCG: UK in top 5 countries with most millionaires
The number of millionaires across the globe has over the past year again increased, with roughly 2.6 million households. In addition, the rich - and even the super rich – continue to become even richer, concludes consulting firm Boston Consulting Group (BCG) in the report 'Global Wealth 2014: Riding a Wave of Growth’. UK yet again belongs to the top 5 countries with the most millionaires.
Last year, the amount of global wealth increased by 14.6% worldwide – nearly double the growth rate of 2012 – to a total of $152 trillion. Particularly in North America and Asia Pacific, the wealth of individuals increased sharply. For the coming five years global wealth is forecasted to increase with on average 5.4% per year, bringing the market to a size of $198 trillion in 2018.
The growth of the asset level ($19.3 trillion) is to a large part (79%) caused by the increased value of existing wealth. Newly created wealth accounted for just over $4 trillion.
Top 15
In 2013, the globe had a total of 16.3 million millionaire-households (roughly 1.1% of all households in the world), a significant growth from 13.7 million registered in 2012. The US leads the top 15 with 7.1 million millionaire-households, of which 1.1 million are new millionaires. The number 2 is China with over 2.3 million millionaires, a growth of nearly one million compared to the previous year. Although Japan retains its third place, the country lost 0.3 million millionaires, mainly due to the inflation of the yen versus the dollar by 15%. UK, just like the year before, finds itself on the 4th place with 513,000 millionaires.
The super-rich – households with a free disposable wealth of $100 million or more – possessed $8.4 trillion in 2013. This is 5.5% of the global total, an increase of 19.7% from 2012. The countries with the highest percentage of so-called ‘Ultra High-Net Worth Individuals’ (UHNW) are Hong Kong, Switzerland and Austria.
BCG defines a millionaire-household as a household that has more than $1 million in liquid assets, such as cash, deposits and invest available assets. The consulting firm uses a reasonably narrow definition of millionaire – assets such as private companies, yachts, villa's or a luxurious vehicle fleet are excluded.
