The biggest Chinese billionaires include the founder of the company that owns TikTok, the founders of leading e-commerce and technology companies, as well as the leader of a tea and bottled water company. In a year that is not so favorable for Chinese stocks, the top 10 are worth nearly as much as a year ago.
The number of mainland Chinese billionaires on Forbes’s 37th annual World’s Billionaires list has declined for the second year in a row. The total number of billionaires by ranking in 2023 is 495, down from 539 in contrast to last year, and the record was 626 in 2021. The consequences of the pandemic and geopolitical tensions have led to a drop in stock values and slowed economic growth in the world’s second-largest economy.
When creating the list of mainland China billionaires, those with passports from Hong Kong and Macau were not included in the list. If we include them, China has a total of 562 billionaires in 2023, as opposed to 607 in 2022 and 698 in 2021. Compared to last year, 76 billionaires are no longer on the list, this year 16 new names appear, such as 14 returnees on the list.
China’s top ten billionaires are worth a combined 311 billion dollars, down from 322 billion dollars in 2022 and 447 billion dollars in 2021. Mainland Chinese billionaires account for 13.6% of the total wealth of the world’s billionaire ranks, which totals 2.640 people worth a collective 12.2 trillion dollars.
The first on the list from China for the third year in a row is the giant for the production of bottled water and tea, Zhong Shanshan, the founder of Nongfu Spring, which operates in Hong Kong. He dropped out of elementary school during the chaotic period of China’s Cultural Revolution, and his company is currently worth 68 billion dollars, up from 65.7 billion dollars last year. Due to the constant demand for bottled water, he is ranked as the 15th richest man in the world.
Zhong was among five out of ten Chinese whose fortunes rose over the past year. Notable among this group is e-commerce billionaire Colin Huang, founder of Nasdaq-listed PDD Holdings (formerly Pinduoduo), whose fortune has increased to an estimated 30.2 billion dollars from 11.3 billion dollars in 2022. PDD shares more than doubled on the launch of the ‘Temu’ shopping site in the United States (U.S.) market.
The fortunes of the founders of other Internet companies also increased during the expectation of a recovery in spending after the end of strict pandemic measures. Among them: Chris Xu, founder of the online ‘fast fashion’ site Shein, who nearly doubled his fortune to 10.5 billion dollars this year, and Baidu’s Robin Li, whose fortune rose by 700 million dollars to 7.7 billion dollars.
These are the top 3 richest people in China:
1. Zhong Shanshan: Net Worth: 68 billion dollars, Source of Wealth: Beverages, Pharmaceuticals, Residence: Hangzhou. Zhong is the chairman of bottled water and tea company Nongfu Spring. He holds onto the first place in China in terms of the richest people, a place he won in 2021 after the company’s initial public offering in September 2020 in Hong Kong. The rise in the shares of beverage producer Nongfu Spring led to a fall in the shares of his company “Beijing Wantai Biological Pharmacy,”, a manufacturer of COVID-19 tests, a company of which he is also the chairman.
2. Zhang Yiming: Net worth: 45 billion dollars, Source of wealth: Internet media, Residence: Beijing. Zhang is the founder of ByteDance, the company that operates the wildly popular short-form video platform TikTok. TikTok ranks as one of the most valuable companies in the world, however, its value has been reduced over the past year due to suspicions that it could be banned from the U.S. market. Our valuation has slid to 225 billion dollars from 250 dollars billion since last year during suspicions that it will be banned from the U.S. market. Zhang resigned as chairman of ByteDance in November 2021 after resigning as CEO earlier in May of the same year, allegedly due to pressure from the Chinese government. Zhang owns 20% of ByteDance.
3. Ma Huateng: Net worth: 35.3 billion dollars, Source of wealth: Internet media, Residence: Shenzhen. Ma, also known as Pony Ma, is the CEO of web-media giant Tencent and owns 7.4 percent of the company. The company’s Hong Kong-traded shares have fallen 10 percent in the past year amid slower growth and new Communist Party rules on Internet businesses. One of Tencent’s most successful investments was in the U.S. company Epic Games, known for creating the game Fortnite; Tencent acquired 40 percent of the firm in 2013 for 300 million dollars, a stake that is now worth more than 6.8 billion dollars, Forbes reports.
E.Dz.
