Mukesh Ambani Makes It To Top 10 Richest People, First Time For An Indian

Mukesh Ambani, the largest shareholder, chairman of Reliance Industries, has now reached the list of top 10 richest people on earth as the first Indian, according to Hurun.

The announcement was made by Hurun in its recent research. This is the first time for Ambani to get into the top 10 richest list after he gained a $9 billion surge, jumping from $45 billion to a total of $54 billion in net worth.

As per Hurun Research, the entrepreneur who is working mainly in the fields of retail, telecom, and energy, is the richest and the only Asian to appear in the list, despite India's poor performance of the stock market last year. The 2018 Hurun philanthropist has also expanded his company's investment in entertainment with $700-million deals to control Den Networks and Hathway Cable.

Mukesh Ambani's Reliance Jio Infocomm likewise recently announced its 4G LTE network following the launch of the largest and fastest international connection in India.

As indicated by Hurun's research, there are currently 104 billionaires in India, downsizing from 132 in last year's report, making the country drop to the 5th place in the top countries with the most billionaires.

Pharmaceuticals, TMT (Telecommunication, Media, and Technology), and FMCG are the leading sectors with the highest amount of billionaires in India, contributing 18, 15, and 10 billionaires respectively. More than half of the billionaires are living in Mumbai along with New Delhi, with 42 residents living in Mumbai and 25 living in New Delhi.

The reasons for the downsizing of the number of Indian billionaires are mainly due to India's rupee 10% devaluation and the poor performance of the country's stock market during the course of last year, causing the total amount of net worth to shrink by $347 billion, a 25% drop from 2017.