Top 50 Wealthiest Cities; Aamchi Mumbai Has Most Millionaires In India, Silicon Valley Is Rapidly Racing Up

Two major cities of India have made to the list of top 50 wealthiest cities in the world 2024, as per the report of Henley & Partners. These are India's capital Delhi, and financial hub, Mumbai with the latter outperforming the other. But there was another city which caught attention of Henley's research, the heart of the silicon hub of the country, Bengaluru.

As per Henley's report, Mumbai is the 24th wealthiest city in the world with 58,800 millionaires, 236 centi-millionaires and 29 billionaires. This is a rise of 5% from 2013-2023.

Following close, the national capital, Delhi stood at the 37th rank in the list with 30,700 millionaires, 123 centi-millionaires, and 16 billionaires.

However, Henley's report found the Silicon Valley of India, Bengaluru promising to enter the top 50 list.

It said, one of the fastest-growing cities in the world for millionaires, Bengaluru is known as the "Garden City" and the "Silicon Valley of India". It has a booming tech sector and is the base city for global tech giants like Infosys and Wipro.

The top 10 wealthiest cities and areas in the World's Wealthiest Cities Report 2024 list are ranked by their number of resident millionaires (namely, high-net-worth individuals (HNWIs) with liquid investable wealth of USD 1 million or more). The millionaires are with net worth of over $1 million, while the centi-millionaires are with income over $100 millions. And the billionaires are categorised with net worth over $1 billion.

In the top 10 list, the wealthiest city of the world is New York taking lead with 349,500 HNWIs.

In New York, the Big Apple is the financial center of the USA and the wealthiest city in the world by several measures. The city features some of the world's most exclusive residential streets including 5th Avenue in Manhattan, where prime apartment prices can exceed USD 28,000 per m2. New York City is also home to the world's two largest stock exchanges by market cap (the NYSE and the Nasdaq).

Perhaps most notably, the total wealth held by New York's residents exceeds USD 3 trillion - higher than that held in most major G20 countries.

Quickly catching up to New York City is Northern California's Bay Area, encompassing the city of San Francisco and Silicon Valley, which includes affluent towns such as Atherton, Los Altos Hills, and Palo Alto. Most of the world's top tech firms, including Airbnb, Alphabet, Apple, Intel, Meta, Netflix, Nvidia, and Uber, are based in the area and it consistently attracts large numbers of wealthy tech entrepreneurs annually from all parts of the world, as per the report.

At the third place is Tokyo, becoming Asia's wealthiest city. This Japanese city is the base for corporate giants Hitachi, Mitsubishi, and Sony. Interestingly, a relatively low number of billionaires live in Tokyo when compared to the other cities in the Top 10, indicating that wealth is relatively evenly distributed, with the lower-tier millionaires controlling most of the city's wealth.

Other cities in the top 10 list are -- Singapore at 4th rank with 244,800 HNWIs, London at 5th rank with 227,000 HNWIs. Meanwhile, Los Angeles, Paris, Sydney, Hong Kong, and Beijing make up the top 10 wealthiest cities list.

Henley's report shed some light on Shenzhen which emerged as the world's fastest-growing city for the wealthy, with millionaire growth of 140% recorded over the past decade (2013 to 2023). Another Chinese city, Hangzhou, is the world's second-fastest-growing city for the wealthy, with millionaire growth of 125% recorded over the past decade.

In cities to watch, Henley's report said, Abu Dhabi is the world's next big millionaire hotspot with 22,700 HNWIs, while Athens is bouncing back with 22,600 HNWIs, and Lisbon is one of Europe's fastest-growing cities with 21,800 HNWIs. Saudi Arabia's Riyadh is also rising fast with 18,200 HNWIs. Lastly, it said, Monaco has the world's highest millionaire density with 15,600 HNWIs.