Hurun Rich List: ByteDance’s Zhang Yiming tops China list with $43.9bn wealth

Hurun Rich List: ByteDance founder Zhang Yiming has topped Hurun China’s richest people list this year, with a net worth of $49.3 billion, AP reported. ByteDance is the parent company of the video-focused social media platform TikTok and its Chinese counterpart Douyin.
This is the first time that Zhang has topped the list; notably, he is also the first person born in the 1980s to top the country’s Hurun list, the report added.
Zhang is followed by last year’s list topper and Nongfu Spring owner Zhong Shanshan, worth $47.9 billion. The bottled water empire billionaire saw his net worth plummet by billions after customers accused the company’s bottle designs of being “disloyal” to China, as per the report.
Rounding out the top three is Tencent founder Pony Ma, worth $44.4 billion. He has risen on the list due to impressive revenues from the company’s gaming unit.
The Hurun Research Institute noted that many Chinese billionaires saw their net worths sink during this year, with the collective wealth reaching $3 trillion — down 10 per cent compared to 2023 figures, AP reported.
Further, the total number of billionaires has also slid (when converting to USD) down to 142 people to 753 this year, compared to 1,185 billionaires in 2021.
“The Hurun China Rich List has shrunk for an unprecedented third year running, as China’s economy and stock markets had a difficult year,” Rupert Hoogewerf, chairman and chief researcher said in the Hurun report.
In terms of new names added, this year China had only 54 new billionaires — its lowest addition in two decades, the report noted.
In comparison, the collective wealth of India’s richest crossed the trillion-dollar milestone for the first time this year — reaching $1.1 trillion, according to the Forbes 2024 richest Indians list released in October.
However, the growth has been exponential, with this figure being twice their worth since 2019, adding around $316 billion in the past 12 months alone, it said.
Further, over 80 per cent of the richest Indians are wealthier, with 58 of them adding $1 billion or more to their respective net worths, and the top 12 accounts for close to half the top 100’s combined wealth, it added.
As of October 2024, Mukesh Ambani, Chairman and MD of Reliance Industries, topped the India list and Asia list with an estimated net worth of $119.5 billion across diversified assets. He was notably, the second biggest gainer in dollar terms, adding $27.5 billion this year.
Ambani is followed by Gautam Adani and his family, who are worth an estimated $116 billion across diversified assets. The owner of Adani Group gained the most over the year, adding $48 billion.
Notably, Zhang’s wealth is less than half of both Ambani and Adani. which could make a case for India’s growth prospects compared to China’s going forward.
(With inputs from AP)