Chinese billionaires outnumbered rest of the world

The number of Chinese billionaires surpassed those from rest of the world at 658 as of Jan. 31, followed by U.S. with 584 billionaires and Germany with 117, according to the newly released Hurun Global, China's version of the Forbes rich list.

Jack Ma, chairman of Alibaba Group attends the World Economic Forum (WEF) annual meeting in Davos, Switzerland, January 23, 2019. [Photo: VCG]

Beijing was the city with the most billionaires at 103, followed by New York at 92.

All together, 2470 billionaires were ranked by Hurun Global, while 224 tycoons on the list last year lost their billionaire status. Amazon founder Jeff Bezos topped the chart for the second year running with wealth estimated to be $147 billion. Bill Gates ranked second with $96 billion and Warren Buffett was third with $88 billion.

The wealthiest Chinese billionaire was e-commerce giant Alibaba's founder Jack Ma, the world's 22nd most wealthy person, with $39 billion, followed by Ma Huateng of Internet giant Tencent Holdings, with $38 billion and Xu Jiayin of property developer Evergrande, with $37 billion.