In a report published last week, the Hurun Research Institute said the combined wealth of the 5.12 million families in China with at least 6 million yuan (US$824,000) in assets was 150 trillion yuan in 2024.
The wealthiest 130,000 of those families accounted for 58 per cent of that total, up from 56 per cent a year earlier.
At the same time, the collective wealth of the families above the 6 million yuan threshold shrank by 5 per cent, with the average fortune per household at 29.29 million yuan, down from 30.7 million yuan in 2023.
China’s per capita disposable income, by contrast, was 41,314 yuan last year, up 5.3 per cent from 2023.
Most of the wealthy families run businesses and analysts have warned that Beijing needs to work harder to narrow the wealth gap in society more broadly as it tries to ignite a private sector-led economic recovery.