In the first half of 2022, the number of high-net-worth individuals in the emirate of Dubai increased by 18%, ranking it as the 23rd most popular destination worldwide for ultra-wealthy residents.
The city’s HNWI population increased to 67,900, up from 54,000 in June of last year, according to a study by New World Wealth, a research firm that tracks the wealth and travel of millionaires, multimillionaires, and billionaires globally, and Henley & Partners, a research firm that tracks private wealth and investment migration trends globally.
Dubai will have 13 billionaires in 2022, one more than in 2021, and 202 centimillionaires, up from 165 in 2021. The study found that there were 3,170 multimillionaires in June as opposed to 2,480 in June of the previous year.
According to Andrew Amoils, head of research at New World Wealth, the first half of 2022 was a bad time for the creation of global wealth.
The number of high-net-worth individuals worldwide decreased by 5% in the six months leading up to June 2022. This decline was mostly caused by the underwhelming performance of the major stock market indices; the S&P 500 fell by 20%, and the majority of the other major indices also fell by comparable amounts.
HNWIs are defined as people with net worths of at least $1 million, while multimillionaires have net worths of at least $10 million, according to the research. Centimillionaires have a net worth of at least $100 million, whereas millionaires have assets of at least $1 billion.
The number of ultra-high-net-worth individuals, or those with a net worth of $30 million or more, surged internationally by 9.3% last year as the global economy recovered from the pandemic and equities markets rose, according to a March research by the international real estate consultancy Knight Frank.
Last year, 52,000 additional people worldwide entered the ultra-wealthy group. The distribution of wealth growth in 2021 was equal across all continents, with North America leading the pack with a 12.2% gain in wealth for UHNWIs.
New York City came in first place on the study’s list of the richest cities in the world with 345,600 millionaires. New Yorkers own more private wealth than the bulk of the major G20 countries, totaling more than $3 trillion.
The San Francisco Bay Area, which encompasses Silicon Valley and the city of San Francisco, comes in third with 276,400 millionaires residing there, trailing only Tokyo, the financial hub of Japan, which has 304,900 HNWI people.
The survey lists the top five cities as the city-state of Singapore (249,800) and London (272,400 millionaires).
According to the poll, billionaires have been steadily leaving London over the past ten years, with many of them relocating to adjacent commuter cities.
Mr. Amoils stated that “this is mostly attributable to stock market increases in these markets and a significant increase in Brent crude prices.”
Other intriguing places on the list include Lugano, a well-liked Swiss vacation destination for wealthy European retirees. Bengaluru, India is also gaining millionaires due to its rapidly growing IT, biotechnology, and business process outsourcing sectors. Watch out for the riches magnet of Hangzhou, China.
By 2030, Dubai, Mumbai, and Shenzhen, China, are anticipated to rank among the top 20 richest cities, he continued.
Shenzhen has 43,600 millionaires living there, compared to 60,600 in Mumbai.
