More affluent households in India than in much of Europe: survey

There are more affluent households in India than in many European countries, and with $1 million of investable assets on average, the country's rich are better off than the wealthy in most parts of Europe.

The Global Affluent Investor study by TNS, part of  one of the world's largest insight, information and consultancy groups, Kantar, reveals that the affluent in emerging markets such as India now rival their developed counterparts in terms of the amount that they have to invest.

India, along with the UAE, appears in the top-five countries where the affluent have more than $1 million investable assets on average, alongside Singapore and Hong Kong. The only Europeans to feature in this top five are the Swedish, whilst the UK and France are the least likely in Europe to have these levels of investable assets.

Based on interviews with 12,000 people across 24 markets including India, China and Brazil the study shows that the growth of developing economic powerhouses is starting to impact personal fortunes among households with more than $100,000 investable assets.

The study estimates that about one per cent of Indians (about 12 million people) constitute the affluent, with investable assets of more than $100,000. The incidence of affluence is high in small, wealthy countries such as Luxemburg (29 per cent) and Singapore (20 per cent), but lower in large countries like India and China (one per cent each).

''When examining global incidence of affluence, it's not only size that matters,'' remarks Reg van Steen, director, business and finance, TNS. ''We wanted to identify the growth potential of each market – and our research confirms that emerging markets will become new centres of affluence in coming years. India and China have already surpassed major European markets like Germany and France. It's interesting to see that the entrepreneurial spirit of people in these markets is already paying off in terms of personal wealth.''