Wealthy Population Grows At Second Fastest Pace In India 

India's wealthy population earning $5 million or more a year rose at the second fastest pace globally last year.

The number of such individuals jumped 21 percent year-on-year to 47,720 in 2017, according to Knight Frank's Wealth Index. That's faster than the global growth of 9 percent and Asia's average of 14 percent, and second only to 26 percent in Russia-CIS.

Mumbai stands at 47 among 314 cities worldwide in terms of the number of ultra-high-net-worth individuals. New York leads the list. Mumbai is also the 18th most costliest city in the world, followed by New Delhi at 22 and Bengaluru at 26.

Also Read: Mumbai Home Prices Drop First Time In A Decade, Says Knight Frank

By 2022, Knight Frank expects India will have 340 super-rich individuals earning $500 million or more, a growth of 70 percent. India ranks after China and Japan with the highest number of wealthy individuals in Asia.

Knight Frank expects Mumbai and Delhi to be among the top 10 markets where the household income would be more than $250,000 a year in five years.

Despite growing wealth, only 17 percent of Indians invest in property compared with 30 percent in Asia and 50 percent globally. Investors would go where there is flow of money and currently real estate slowdown in the country has turned investors away from the sector, said Samantak Das, chief economist at Knight Frank India.

Also Read: Mumbai To Get More Space To Build Homes

Other Highlights

• A property of less than 1,000 sq feet in a few prime locations in Mumbai would cost around $1 million. This makes India's financial capital the sixteenth costliest city to buy property in.
• Wealthy Indians do not prefer investments in property and prefer other modes of investments.
• 95 percent of the Indian respondents prefer investing in financial instruments. That's much higher than the global average of 62 percent.