Night view of the Lujiazui financial district in downtown Shanghai.
Yongyuan Dai | E+ | Getty Images
ByteDance founder Zhang Yiming emerged as China’s richest man for the first time, according to a list compiled by the Hurun Research Institute, leaving Spring Chairman Nongfu Zhong Shanshan who has held the top spot for three years.
Zhang, 44, with a personal fortune of $49.3 billion, beat ‘bottled water king’ Zhong, whose wealth fell 24% to $47.9 billion after the public backlash against his company in February. Zhang was ranked fifth last year.
ByteDance is known for its popular app, TikTok, which has more than a billion monthly active users worldwide. The company’s profits rose about 30% last year, Hurun said.
Pony Ma Huateng, CEO of Chinese internet giant Tencent, placed one in third place, although his wealth rose 13% to $44.4 billion thanks to Tencent’s rising revenue and profits.
Colin Huang, founder of e-commerce platform Pinduoduo, was in fourth place as his wealth fell by 9%. Midea founder He Xiangjian and CATL CEO Zeng Yuqun took the fifth and sixth places on the list.
China has 1,094 individuals with wealth exceeding 5 billion yuan ($700 million), down 12% or 147 individuals from the previous year, according to Hurun Research. The combined wealth of these entrepreneurs is about $3 trillion, 10% lower than last year.
The country’s number of millionaires fell from 142 to 753 from the previous year – down more than 30% from its 2021 high of 1,185.
“China’s Hurun Rich List has shrunk for an unprecedented third straight year, as China’s economy and stock market experienced a difficult year,” said Rupert Hoogewerf, report chairman and chief researcher at Hurun.
Today’s rich list mostly includes entrepreneurs from the technology, consumer electronics and new energy spaces, from what used to be dominated by real estate developers, Hoogewerf said.
“The stories of the individuals on the Hurun China Rich List tell the story of China’s economy,” he said.
The new generation of Chinese entrepreneurs is also more international than before, Hoogewerf observed, citing how Zhang ByteDance went global with TikTok and Huang Pinduoduo made Temu’s ascent a global e-commerce hub.