Africa to breed more of world millionaires

Africa is expected to contribute significantly to the number of most wealthy individuals in the next five years. 

According to a new report tracing the origins of new millionaires and utra-high networth (UHNW) individuals in the world, the composition of the rich has changed dramatically over the years to reflect a growing number from low-income countries.

“At the beginning of the century, the 13.8 million millionaires in the world were heavily concentrated (97 per cent) in high-income countries,” notes Credit Suisse in its ‘Global Wealth’ report.

However, since then, 28.3 million new millionaires have appeared, of whom 4.3 million (15 per cent of the total) were from emerging economies of Africa, India and Latin America.

“This is more than the new entrants to the millionaire class in high-income countries outside North America and Europe,” notes the report, adding that this change is even more pronounced in the UHNW segment.

As a result, while emerging economies accounted for only six per cent of the segment in 2000, this year has seen 22 per cent of the growth in UHNW individuals, more than Europe.

Annual rate of growth of the ultra-wealthy is projected to be seven per cent for emerging markets against four per cent for developed markets.

“The share of global wealth of emerging markets will likely reach 27 per cent by 2023, increasing their share by 0.5 percentage points on average each year,” adds the report. 

This development comes on the backdrop of a revelation that currently, there are about 42 million high-net worth people globally holding between $1 million and $50 million, of whom the vast majority (37.1 million) fall in the 1–5 million dollar range.

At the same time, there are 3.3 million adults worth between $5 million and $10 million, and another 1.6 million have assets in the 10–50 million dollar range. “North America now accounts for 18.6 million members (44 per cent of the total), compared to 12.4 million (30 per cent) in Europe,” notes the Credit Suisse report.