India now has over 100,000 Millionaires

In just a few short years, India has surpassed the 100,000 mark for millionaires. In fact, India is producing millionaires at a record rate with no let up in sight. Most interesting is that almost 7% of the millionaires are under 30 years old and have almost $300 billion in assets.

Thanks to the increases in the SENSEX and Nifty, with additional help from Indian Real Estate gains, India is now on pace to have 1,000,000 millionaires within a decade. According to the 11th annual world wealth report compiled by Capgemini and Merrill Lynch, India, Indonesia and Russia are believed to have the highest growth in High Net Worth Individuals.

A lot of India’s domestic wealth creation in the past few years has been poured back into domestic real estate investments. The India Street believes this response has helped push values up in most of the Tier 1 and 2 cities.

"Robust growth in the Indian economy and a booming stock market were the key wealth drivers,'' said Pradeep Dokania of DSP Merrill Lynch. “Over the last three years, we have seen a steady rise in the number of professionals being added to the HNWI population as against entrepreneurs.''

Some of India’s recent rich are now making investments outside of India thus increasing their returns and mitigating risk. Some foreigners are even calling on the new India wealthy class to fund their investments in the US and Europe.

What does this mean for you?

With an ever expanding wealth base in India, luxury products and services will be a necessity. Currently, very few foreign luxury products exist in India due to protectionism and an ever-present Nehru socialist philosophy. Smart businesses will recognize the need for the new wealthy class to underscore their wealth by buying status symbols. High priced cars, apartments, houses, clothes, purses and other items that easily distinguish the individual from everyone else. This is human nature (especially in a rapidly emerging capitalistic country) and will eventually sweep the country as more have access to higher paying jobs and wealth creating opportunities.

The following is a list of Indians by net worth. According to the Forbes magazine, India is home to the largest number of billionaires in Asia. The following data from the Forbes World's Billionaires 2007. There are 36 Indians (inclusive of non-resident Indians) on the list.

As of 2007, the following were the 40 richest Indians according to the Forbes magazine.

Rank	Name	Net Worth (US$ bil)	Age	City	Main Source	Industry
1	Lakshmi Mittal	33.7	56	London	Arcelor-Mittal	Steel
2	Mukesh Ambani	20.1	48	Mumbai	Reliance Industries	Diversified
3	Anil Ambani	18.2	46	Mumbai	Reliance Communications	Diversified
4	Azim Premji	17.1	60	Bangalore	Wipro	ITES, Software
5	Kushal Pal Singh	10.0	74	Delhi	DLF Universal	Real Estate, Construction
6	Sunil Mittal	9.50	48	Delhi	Bharti Airtel	Telecommunications
7	Kumar Mangalam Birla	8.00	38	Mumbai	Aditya Birla Group	Diversified
8	Shashi and Ravi Ruia	8.00	62	Mumbai	Essar Group	Textiles, Steel, Shipping
9	Ramesh Chandra	6.40	n/a	Delhi	Unitech	Construction, Real Estate
10	Shiv Nadar	4.00	60	Delhi	HCL	Consumer electronics, ITES
11	Tulsi Tanti	3.70	47	Pune	Suzlon	Wind Power
12	Pallonji Mistry	3.30	76	Mumbai	Shapoorji Pallonji Group, Tata Group	Textiles, Construction
13	Anurag Dikshit	3.10	n/a	Gibraltar	PartyGaming	Online gambling
14	Paul Brant	2.30	63	Mumbai	Godrej Industries	Diversified
15	Anil Agarwal	2.10	52	London	Vedanta Resources	Mining
16	Dilip Shanghvi	2.70	50	Mumbai	Sun Pharmaceuticals	Pharmaceuticals
17	Naresh Goyal	1.90	56	Mumbai	Jet Airways	Airlines
18	Indu Jain	1.70		Delhi	Bennett, Coleman & Co. Ltd	Media
19	Venugopal Dhoot	1.60	52	Mumbai	Videocon	Consumer durables
20	Malvinder & Shivinder Singh	1.55	NA	Delhi	Ranbaxy	Pharma
21	Rahul Bajaj	1.50	67	Pune	Bajaj	Diversified
22	Jindal family	1.40	NA	Delhi, Mumbai	Jindal Steel	Metals
23	Baba Kalyani	1.20	56	Pune	Bharat Forge	Metals
24	Brijmohan Lall Munjal	1.18	83	Delhi	Hero Honda	Automotive
25	Yusuf Hamied	1.15	69	Mumbai	Cipla	Pharma
26	Sanjay Kirloskar	1.10	49	Pune	Kirloskar Group	Engineering, Construction
27	N. R. Narayana Murthy	1.05	59	Bangalore	Infosys	IT, ITES
28	Uday Kotak	1.00	46	Mumbai	Kotak Mahindra	Finance
29	Vijay Mallya	0.95	49	Bangalore	United Breweries Group	Beverages, Airlines
30	Subhash Chandra	0.90	55	Mumbai	Zee	Entertainment
31	Vikrant Bhargava	0.87	33	Gibraltar	PartyGaming	Online gambling
32	Habil Khorakiwala	0.80	63	Mumbai	Wockhardt	Health
33	Ajay Piramal	0.77	50	Mumbai	Nicolas Piramal	Pharma
34	Nandan Nilekani	0.74	50	Bangalore	Infosys	IT, ITES
35	Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw	0.71	52	Bangalore	Biocon	Biotechnology
36	S Gopalakrishnan	0.70	51	Bangalore	Infosys	IT, ITES
37	Ramalinga Raju	0.67	50	Hyderabad	Satyam	Computer Services
38	Narendra Patni	0.65	63	Boston, Mumbai	Patni Computer Systems	IT
39	Karsanbhai Patel	0.64	61	Ahmedabad	Nirma	FMCG
40	Akshay Jari	0.62	24	Delhi		Telecommunications