Korean Adults' Assets Average US$175,020
Credit Suisse said in its recent report that the average assets of South Korean adults are US$175,020, the number of South Korean adult millionaires is 741,000, and the global top 1 percent and top 10 percent in terms of asset size include 806,000 and 12,308,000 South Korean adults, respectively.
According to the report, South Korean adults’ total assets are US$7.3 trillion, their average assets are much larger than the Asia-Pacific average and are close to Western European countries’ average, and South Korean adults’ non-financial assets account for as high as 63 percent of their total assets mainly owing to high real estate prices, which is a remarkably high ratio considering South Korea’s high savings rate.
Credit Suisse also said that South Koreans’ liabilities are equivalent to 18 percent of their total assets and the ratio is not worrisome although it is higher than the average of high-income countries.
It pointed out that the worldwide polarization of wealth has been mitigated to some extent but 46,800,000 millionaires, equivalent to 0.9 percent of the worldwide total, still own US$158.3 trillion, which is 44 percent of the total wealth of the world. The number of millionaires increased by 1.1 million from mid-2018 to mid-2019 and the number increased by 675,000 to 18.6 million in the United States, increased by 158,000 to 4.5 million in China, increased by 187,000 to 3 million in Japan, and decreased by 124,000 to 1.2 million in Australia.
In the meantime, CNBC reported that the United States has the largest number of millionaires but Chinese outnumbered Americans for the first time in the top 10 percent group. It added that the top 1 percent of the world owned 47 percent of the world’s total assets in 2000, the ratio is 45 percent this year, and the slight decrease is because of factors such as an increase in the number of middle-class households.