Millionaire Boom

When the Indian stock markets hit the 20,000 level on Monday, many commentators began to hint that the world’s richest man could be in India now. While this may still be debatable, one thing is certain that the new highs reached by the index, not just in India but in China and other countries is creating more and more millionaires. The annual Boston Consulting Group survey on global wealth show that the total number of world millionaire households—those with assets of $1 million or more—grew by 14% in 2006, to 9.6 million, representing the richest 0.7% of all households and owning $33.2 trillion, or about a third of the world’s wealth. As expected the U.S. had, by far, the highest number of millionaire households, with nearly 4.6 million, and the highest number of $100 million-plus households, with 2,300. Japan, Britain, Germany, and China round out the rest of the top five countries with the most millionaire households, in that order. The number of millionaire households increased the most last year in China (up 39%), Spain (up 32%), and Britain (up 30.5%). More from BusinessWeek.