China minted 76 new billionaires this year to the Forbes’ annual billionaire ranking, three times more than the U.S., where 25 new billionaires were added to the list, followed by 13 from India and 5 from German.
A total of 195 new comers to the list were recorded this year, down from the 198 registered in 2016. The ranking this year is a snapshot of individual wealth taken on February 17, 2017, when stock prices and exchange rates were locked in from around the world.
The most notable newly minted Chinese billionaires is Lucy Peng, co-founder of e-commerce giant Alibaba Group. She has an estimated 2% stake in the company’s financial services arm, Ant Financial, which raised funds at a reported US$60 billion valuation last year. Peng, Ant’s executive chairman, is one of 21 self-made women billionaires in China.
Other new billionaires in China include founders of publicly listed companies in various industries including manufacturing, mining, pharmaceuticals, real estate, driving schools, chemicals and software.
Besides Peng, 24 of the newcomers were women, nine of whom were also from mainland China. The total number of women on the list is 227, up from 202 in 2016. A record 56 of those women are self-made billionaires, and an all-time high of 25% of the world’s women billionaires are self-made, compared to 21% in 2016. The richest self-made woman is Hong Kong’s Zhou Qunfei, whose Lens Technology went public in 2015.
Altogether, 78 people dropped out of the rankings, a significant decrease from 2016’s 221 drop-offs.
Regionally, Asia-Pacific boasted the most billionaires, with 720 billionaires, followed by the United States with 565 and Europe with 530.
By country, the U.S. led with the greatest number of billionaires, with 565, followed by mainland China with 319, Germany with 114, India with 101 and Russia with 96. California alone has 140 billionaires, more than any country besides the U.S. and China.