The number of millionaires all over the world, including in Germany, continued to rise in the past year – but inflation and the aftermath of the war are now also affecting large fortunes.

This is reported by the management consultancy Capgemini in its annual "World Wealth Report".

According to this, the number of people in Germany who own investable assets of the equivalent of one million dollars or more (not including owner-occupied real estate, collections and consumables) increased by 6.4 percent compared to the previous year to 1,633,000.

The wealth of millionaires combined has risen even faster than their number, namely by 7.4 percent.

America has the most millionaires

Christian Siedenbiedel

Editor in Business.

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Around the world, the number of millionaires increased by 7.8 percent to 22.5 million.

The largest group of them live in the United States, which also saw the largest increase of 13.2 percent to 7.9 million.

The country with the second most millionaires is Japan with 3.6 million ahead of Germany with 1.6 and China with 1.5 million.

"But it's only a matter of time before China overtakes Germany," says Capgemini's Klaus-Georg Meyer.

There were declining millionaire numbers in Hong Kong and Brazil, for example.

The wealthy benefit from higher real estate prices

For the first few months of this year, Capgemini estimates that the aftermath of war, inflation and stock market losses caused global millionaire fortunes to shrink by 4 percent.

The management consultancy attributes the increase in the number of millionaires in Germany last year despite the pandemic to various factors: German gross domestic product continued to rise despite corona measures.

However, many millionaires would also have benefited from the further increase in real estate prices, especially in the metropolitan areas.

Capgemini also refers to the high savings rate last year - many Germans, especially wealthy ones, were able to spend less money on vacation or shopping than usual due to Corona.

According to the study, wealthy Germans changed less in their investment behavior in the past year than one might have thought.

The millionaires surveyed were slightly less invested in stocks and bonds than in the previous year, but slightly more in real estate and alternative investments.

However, there are some notable trends, reports Meyer: a significantly larger group of millionaires than in the past is interested in sustainable investments.

55 percent of millionaires called this “a key issue”.

And digital investments have also become much more important for millionaires: a proud 71 percent said they had already invested in digital assets, 39 percent directly in cryptocurrencies.

Meyer said: "The last few months have been bloody for these investors - many had to lose their feathers."