Swiss bank UBS released the '2024 Billionaire Ambitions Report', showing that the number of Malaysian billionaires has dropped from 14 in 2023 to 11 in 2024, with 36.4% of them being self-made billionaires.
The report states that over the past year, the wealth of Malaysian billionaires shrank by 11%, dropping from 38.3 billion USD in 2023 to 34.1 billion USD in 2024 (approximately 150.9 billion ringgit).
Globally, American billionaires saw the largest growth in wealth in 2024, increasing by 27.6% to 5.8 trillion USD, accounting for more than 40% of the total global billionaire wealth. The number of American billionaires rose by 11.2%, reaching 835 individuals.
The entire Asia-Pacific region saw slow billionaire wealth growth, with only a 1.8% increase in the past year, totaling 3.8 trillion USD. The number of billionaires decreased from 1,019 to 981, although the Asia-Pacific region still has the highest number of billionaires globally.
Within the Asia-Pacific region, Indonesia and India experienced the largest increases in wealth. Indonesian billionaires' wealth grew by 47.1% to 182.3 billion USD, with the number increasing from 24 to 28. Indian billionaires' wealth grew by 42.1% to 905.6 billion USD, with the number rising from 153 to 185.
Conversely, mainland China saw the largest decrease in billionaire wealth, shrinking by 20% to 1.4447 trillion USD, with the number of billionaires decreasing from 520 to 427.