Asia’s billionaire capital: What Mumbai’s rise means for India?

By Ahmad Adil

NEW DELHI (AA) – A global rich list released earlier this year threw up a particular surprise for Asia, where a new city emerged as the continent’s billionaire capital – India’s financial hub Mumbai.

Mumbai took the crown from Beijing for the first time as its number of billionaires swelled by 26 to 92, edging past the Chinese capital’s 91, according to the list prepared by the Shanghai-based Hurun Research Institute.

On the global level, Mumbai is now only behind London and New York, who have 97 and 119 billionaires, respectively.

India’s overall count increased by 94, placing it third in the world – behind the US and China – with 271 billionaires, who have collective wealth amounting to $1 trillion, or 7% of the world’s total, according to the report.

The exponential growth seen in Mumbai is “quite exciting because it also positions India as a pivotal country in terms of wealth creation in the world,” Anas Rahman Junaid, founder and chief researcher at Hurun India, told Anadolu.

Mumbai has always been the epicenter of wealth creation in India as most family-run businesses have historically been based here, he said.

“Mumbai is always the place of choice for anybody who wants to set up their business and expand across India,” he said.

Another important factor is Mumbai being a port city, which made it a trade and finance hub throughout history, according to economic expert Abhijit Mukhopadhyay.

- ‘Industrial groups amassing wealth’

For Mukhopadhyay, it is clear that the number of billionaires in India is “going up only in a few pockets.”

“The Mumbai story is not detached from the India story. Whether the number of billionaires increasing is an achievement that can be proudly worn on the sleeve or not remains a question,” he told Anadolu.

India’s market structure is decisively shifting towards an oligopoly, with very few players dominating across all major profitable sectors, he said.

“For example, many American billionaires, like Mark Zuckerberg, Jeff Bezos etc., made their fortunes, at least initially, by creatively innovating,” he said.

“But that is not the case in India. Policy favors and direct incentivization enabled a few industrial groups to amass wealth by getting into all the current profitable sectors and then consolidating those profits.”

That is why he believes there will not be many more billionaires emerging “either in Mumbai or in any other city in India.”

“It is an exclusive club indeed,” said Mukhopadhyay.

According to Hurun report, India’s dominant industries when it comes to billionaires include pharmaceuticals, automobile and auto components, and chemicals.

The country’s richest people are also highly influential industrialists Mukesh Ambani – the wealthiest person in Asia – and Gautam Adani, head of the Adani Group energy conglomerate.

- ‘Overall inequality has increased very dramatically’

Experts like economist Santosh Mehrotra have also pointed out how the burgeoning wealth of a few is “integrally connected” to the country’s other problems such as spiking youth unemployment.

Nearly 83% of the country’s jobless population is from the youth demographic, according to the India Employment Report 2024 jointly published by the International Labor Organization and the New Delhi-based Institute of Human Development.

“They are integrally connected … because what the increase in billionaires … clearly shows is that there is something going on in the capital market here. Hurun’s list is based on the net worth of billionaires based on capital markets,” Mehrotra told Anadolu.

“Overall inequality has increased very dramatically in the country and that is what is getting reflected in the Harun list. The overall inequality in wealth and income is leading to certain people controlling the corridors of power and making sure decisions are being taken,” he said.

He believes that India has become “one of the most unequal countries in the world in the last 10 years.”

“Inequality was dropping for about 30 years after independence (in 1947). But it slowly started increasing and, now in the last 10 years, it has worsened. The wealth inequality is showing in billionaire numbers shooting up,” he added.

The Indian government, however, has said that unemployment rates have been declining in the country.

“During 2017-18 to 2022-23, employment has increased by 9.2%,” the Labor Ministry said in a written response to lawmakers in February.

- Could any other Indian city follow Mumbai?

When it comes to other Indian cities that could catch up with Mumbai, Mukhopadhyay believes the capital New Delhi is the only potential candidate.

He said Bengaluru, an IT hub in southern India, was once considered a primary contender but has fallen down the list due to emerging urban issues, such as a recent water crisis.

“As things stand now, it does not seem that any other city can replicate Mumbai in terms of creating billionaires, if we exclude Delhi. Delhi may have the potential to do that in future,” he said.

Anas from Hurun India, however, had a more optimistic view of the situation, stressing that the country will definitely see a lot more “democratization of wealth across geographies in the coming years.”