Asia Tech Wire (Oct 29) -- ByteDance founder Zhang Yiming has become China's richest person for the first time in 2024, according to a new report released by the Hurun Research Institute.
Hurun Research found that in 2024, there are 1,094 individuals with wealth of 5 billion yuan ($700 million) or more, a 12% decrease from last year.
Meanwhile, the total wealth of these Chinese entrepreneurs amounted to $2.97 trillion, down 10% from last year.
According to the report, Zhang Yiming, the 41-year-old founder of ByteDance, saw his wealth rise 43% to $49.3 billion, making him China's richest man for the first time.
He is the 18th richest person in China in the past 26 years, and the first Chinese billionaire born in the 1980s to start a business from scratch.
With his short-video platforms such as Douyin and sister app TikTok, Zhang has led ByteDance to become the world's largest unicorn.
Pony Ma, the 53-year-old founder and CEO of Tencent, came in third with $44.4 billion, mainly due to Tencent's significant performance in gaming, advertising, and cloud business, which drove the company's overall performance.
Pinduoduo's 44-year-old founder and CEO Colin Huang has 9% less wealth than last year, coming in fourth with $34.5 billion, down one spot from 2023.
Robin Zeng, the 56-year-old founder and chairman of CATL, saw his wealth shrink 20% from last year to rank sixth with $28.2 billion, down two spots.
The decrease in Zeng's wealth was mainly due to increased competition in the industry, export constraints and macroeconomic uncertainties that put pressure on CATL's earnings growth.
William Ding, 53, founder and CEO of NetEase, saw his wealth shrink 17% from last year to tie with Zeng for sixth place with $28.2 billion, the same ranking as last year.
Jack Ma, 60, founder of Alibaba, saw his wealth drop 3% from last year to rank 10th with $23.2 billion, the same ranking as last year.
Ma, who has been retired for five years, gets 40% of his wealth from Alibaba, 35% from investments and the rest from Ant Group.
