This year’s Hurun China Rich List shows the country currently boasts 743 US dollar billionaires, down from 2021’s peak of 1,185. That’s a loss of just over a third, according to the Shanghai-headquartered Hurun Research Institute.
ByteDance founder Zhang Yiming topped the list, with his personal wealth amounting to US$49.3 billion. ByteDance’s global revenue grew 30 percent last year, hitting the US$110 billion mark (US$200 million of that thanks to TikTok users in the US).
Water magnate Zhong Shanshan slipped from first place to second, with a fortune worth US$47.9 billion. Shenzhen-headquartered Tencent’s founder, Pony Ma Huateng, was in third place with US$44.4 billion. Wahaha heiress and entrepreneur Kelly Zong Fuli was listed as China’s richest woman, but less than a quarter of the billionaires – 23.5 percent – are female.
[See more: Forbes India lists Macao as ‘the second richest place in the world’]
Outside of the Chinese mainland, 97 billionaires resided in Taiwan, 15 more than in 2023, and 56 were in Hong Kong, a decrease of four. None were based in Macao. Just 30 billionaires on the list lived overseas, according to Hurun, mostly in the US and Singapore.
The Hurun China Rich List’s founder and chief researcher, Rupert Hoogewerf – who also goes by his Chinese name Hu Run – noted that this year saw the list shrink “for an unprecedented third year running” due to the country’s economic difficulties and hits to the stock market.
The list includes individuals with fortunes worth at least 5 billion yuan (about US$700 million). “The number of individuals on the list was down by 12 percent in the past year to just under 1,100 individuals and 25 percent from the high point of 2021, when we managed to find 1,465 individuals,” Hoogewerf said.
