Tokyo: When it comes to the number of billionaires by region, Asia now has 951 outnumbering all other regions. North America has 777 billionaires and Europe, 536.
A region-by-region analysis of assets owned by more than 2,400 people on the Forbes 'Real-Time Billionaires List', by Nikkie Asia, showed $4.7 trillion in North America, followed by $3.5 trillion in Asia, and $2.4 trillion in Europe.
"By country, the US ranked first with 719 billionaires followed by China with 440. India has 161," the report said on Tuesday.
The 10 member states of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations have a total of 114 billionaires, while Taiwan has 45, South Korea 28, and Japan 27.
Emerging countries are now producing more billionaires than Europe and the US managed in the 19th and 20th centuries because of advances in communication technologies and globalisation.
Meanwhile, Asian billionaires are facing some adverse effects such as stock price falls and the dollar's appreciation.
While the number of people in the Forbes' Real-Time Billionaires List dropped by 245 in about six months, Asians accounted for 126 of them, compared with 27 North Americans, said the report.
In India, world's second richest person, 60-year-old Gautam Adani, leads the country's rich list with wealth of Rs 10,94,400 crore, as per the IIFL Wealth Hurun India Rich List 2022.
Adani ranks second after Tesla CEO, Elon Musk who has net worth of Rs 12.37 lakh crore.
Adani topped the list by adding Rs 1,600 crore per day over the last year.
Adani's wealth has more than doubled (116 per cent) in the last one year and in absolute terms, he added Rs 5,88,500 crore. In the last five years, the first-generation entrepreneur's wealth has increased by 1440 per cent.
Indian-Americans Vinod Khosla, Romesh Wadhwani and Rakesh Gangwal made it to the Forbes 2022 list of 400 wealthiest Americans with Zscaler CEO Jay Chaudhry leading the pack with a net worth of $8.2 billion.
As a group, the 400 wealthiest Americans are worth $4 trillion, $500 billion less than last year, Forbes noted.
Chaudhry, 63, who founded the cybersecurity firm Zscaler in 2008, is ranked 79. He and his family members own 42 per cent of the Nasdaq-listed firm which went public in March 2018.
Before Zscaler, Chaudhry had founded four other tech companies that were all acquired -- SecureIT, CoreHarbor, CipherTrust, and AirDefense. In 1996, Chaudhry and his wife quit their jobs and used their life savings to launch SecureIT, their first startup.
Chaudhry had moved to the US in 1980 to attend graduate school. He now lives in Reno, Nevada.
With a net worth of $5.2 billion, Vinod Khosla (67) was ranked 181. His firm, Khosla Ventures, invests in experimental technologies such as biomedicine and robotics.
Khosla had co-founded the computer hardware firm Sun Microsystems in 1982 with Andy Bechtolsheim, Bill Joy, and Scott McNealy.
Romesh T. Wadhwani (67), founder and chairman of Symphony Technology Group, was ranked 196 with a net worth of $5.1 billion. He stepped down as CEO of SymphonyAI at the start of 2022 in a move to ready the firm for a potential public offering.
He is also the chairman of ConcertAI, an AI company focused on healthcare and life sciences that was valued at $1.9 billion by venture capital investors in March 2022.
With a net worth of $3.7 billion, airline veteran Rakesh Gangwal (69) made his fortune from InterGlobe Aviation, the parent outfit of budget airline IndiGo, India's largest by market share.
He started his airline career with United Airlines in 1984 and went on to run US Airways Group as its chief executive and chairman. Gangwal had cofounded IndiGo with Rahul Bhatia in 2006 with one aircraft. The Miami resident, who is ranked 261 on the list, owns close to 37 per cent of the company.
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