RICH households: India ranks 2nd after US

Strange as it may sound, with as many as one-third of its population still living in poverty, the country is also home to the second largest number of affluent people with a whopping three million households which have over $1 lakh of investible funds.

According to a survey by the global market research agency TNS, while the US still is the world's most prosperous country with 31 million affluent households, India, China and Brazil have overtaken many European countries in this measure of consumer wealth with three million affluent households each in these countries which have over $1 lakh investible funds.

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In other words, as many as 27 per cent American households are affluent, while this is only 1.25 per cent and 0.75 per cent in regard to India and China respectively, thanks to the sheer size of their population.

 

Though the cut-off money is $1 lakh for all the countries it is just $40,000 in Brazil, where this 3 million households constitute five per cent of the overall number of households.

 

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However, it is Luxembourg that has the highest penetration in terms of percentage with 29 per cent penetration, but in absolute numbers the number of affluent households is only 89,000, followed by the US with 27 per cent penetration, Canada and Singapore 20 per cent each with 2.6 million and 2,30,000 households respectively.

Releasing the report, TNS business and finance director Reg van Steen said, "our research confirms that emerging markets will become new centres of affluence in coming years.

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India and China have already surpassed major European markets like Germany and France in this. It's interesting to see that the entrepreneurial spirit of people in these markets is already paying off in terms of personal wealth."

TNS India senior vice-president Chandrasekhar said, "a lot of people believe that there is considerable level of latent affluence in this country.

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And this study gives some pointers on the extent of the investment potential that the country offers as well as some relevant insights for tapping this potential."

 

The study titled the TNS Global Affluent Investor Survey, is based on interviews of 12,092 affluent decision-makers across 24 markets, including the US, India, China, Canada, Brazil, France, Germany, Britain, Belgium, the UAE, Israel, Hong Kong, Singapore and Australia. The online survey was carried out during May-August this year.

 

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The UAE and India appear in the top five countries where the affluent have over $1 million investable assets on average, alongside Singapore and Hong Kong.

 

The only European country to feature in this top five is the Sweden, while Britain and France are the least likely in Europe to have these levels of investable assets.

 

The survey also finds that men are the primary decision- makers among the affluent households in India (80 per cent) and Central Europe (79 per cent), but in north America this is only 45 per cent.

 

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The findings also demonstrate regional contrasts in terms of what the affluent actually invest in.

While in China, India and Germany the affluent are keen investors in precious metals (35, 33, and 23 per cent of respondents respectively), this is only 3 per cent in Sweden, Norway and the Netherlands, and even lesser at 2 per cent in Denmark and Israel.