October 7, 2011 (by Jason Overdorf): India and China have more investor families than individual European countries, according to market research firm TNS. According to the firm’s ‘Global Affluent Investor’ study, India, China and Brazil have overtaken many European countries in this measure of consumer wealth. Each of these countries has more than three million affluent households with over $100,000 of investiment money.
“India and China have already surpassed major European markets like Germany and France. It’s interesting to see that the entrepreneurial spirit of people in these markets is already paying off in terms of personal wealth,” the Economic Times quoted TNS Director Business and Finance Reg van Steen as saying.
While the US is ranked as the world’s most prosperous country, with 31 million affluent households, UAE and India appear in the top five countries where the affluent have more than USD 1 million investable assets on average, alongside Singapore and Hong Kong, the paper said.
However, in small, wealthy countries, the rich make up a much greater percentage of the population: 29 percent for Luxembourg and 20 percent for Singapore, compared to around 1 percent in India and China.