Just 928 households own 20% of India’s private wealth

The millionaire populations in emerging economies India and China are growing both in wealth and numbers, with just 928 Indian households owning a fifth of the country's private wealth and China adding a million households to take its millionaire population to four million in 2014.

In signs of growing disparity in income distribution, a mere 928 households in India now own a fifth of the country's private wealth, according to a report by the Boston Consulting Group.

The percentage of private financial wealth those 928 households own is 20 per cent while the number of such ultra high net worth households stood at 284 in 2013, the BCG report titled 'Global Wealth 2015: Winning the Growth Game' said.

Ultra high net worth households in the country are projected to account for 24 per cent of the country's financial wealth by 2019.

India is currently behind the US (5,201), China (1,037) and the UK (1,019) in the number of such households.

Lesser millionaire households (with financial wealth of more than Rs6.2 crore) own another 36 per cent of the country's private financial wealth, up from the 33 per cent they held in 2009. This is expected to go up further to 38 per cent by 2019.

The report did not specify the number of such households in 2014 but had listed 175,000 millionaire households in 2013.

India led the growth of private wealth in the Asia-Pacific region (excluding Japan), which saw a steep 29 per cent rise in 2014 to $47 trillion (Rs2,914 lakh crore).

Over the next five years, millionaires will be owning nearly half of global private wealth, according to the BCG report.

The study found that 41 per cent of the world's wealth was in the hands millionaires in 2014 and this is now projected to rise to 46 per cent by 2019.

The total number of millionaire households grew to 17 million in 2014, from 15 million the previous year.

The US had the most number of millionaires in 2014 (seven million), followed by China (four million), which also had the highest number of new millionaires (one million). Japan stood at third with one million millionaire households.

However, Switzerland ranked the highest in terms of millionaire density - 135 out of every 1,000 of its households had private wealth greater than $1 million. Bahrain (123), Qatar (116), Singapore (107), and  Kuwait (99) round out the top five.

Total global wealth grew 12 per cent last year, reaching $164 trillion - that's slightly higher than the 12 per cent growth in 2013. North America held the largest share (31 per cent) of global wealth.