Paytm losses mount but Vijay Shekhar Sharma becomes Billionaire

Continuing his winning streak for yet another year, Microsoft’s Bill Gates has once again topped the charts of the Forbes World’s Billionaires List.

With a net worth of $86 Bn, Bill Gates is the richest person in the world for 18 out of the past 23 years. He stepped down as Microsoft Chairman in 2014. In March 2016, when he was crowned the richest billionaire, he had a net worth of $75 Bn. He secured the number one spot for the fourth time in a row.

Flipkart co-founders Sachin Bansal and Binny Bansal who made it to the country’s top 100 rich list in the past did not get a spot on the list. Although Paytm CEO Vijay Shekhar Sharma debuted on the Billionaire list with a net worth of $1.3 Bn.

Earlier this month China-based research firm Hurun also published its ranking of the world’s billionaires – the Global Rich List for 2017. Paytm CEO also managed to gatecrash the Indian billionaire’s club in the Hurun’s list with a net worth of $1.5 Bn. Wealth calculations for the same were a snapshot of January 15, 2017.

Forbes has been releasing the list for over 30 years now. As per the magazine, 2017 saw an increase in the number of billionaires. The total number of billionaires increased by 13% from 1,810 in 2016 to 2,043 in 2017. This is reportedly the first time that Forbes has pinned down more than 2,000 ten-figure-fortunes.

Berkshire Hathaway CEO Warren Buffett occupied the second position with a net worth of $75.6 Bn. In 2016, his net worth was $60.8 Bn.

Online marketplace Amazon’s founder and CEO Jeff Bezos occupied the third position with a net worth of $72.8 Bn, followed by Zara’s Amancio Ortega ($71.3 Bn) and Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg ($56 Bn) in fourth and fifth position, respectively.

The total net worth of the billionaires rose by 18% to $7.67 Tn, the highest grand total, till date.

Among the countries, the US continues to have the highest number of billionaires with a count of 540, followed by China at 319, Germany with 114 billionaires, followed by India with 101 billionaires.

 Mukesh Ambani is the richest Indian with a net worth of $23.2 Bn. Worldwide he is at number 33. Last year, he had a net worth of $19.3 Bn. The magazine further stated, “Oil and gas tycoon Mukesh Ambani sparked a price war in India’s hyper-competitive telecom market with the launch of 4G phone service Jio at the annual shareholder meeting of his Reliance Industries last September. It has notched up 100 Mn subscribers to date by offering free broadband and voice services.”