The number of Chinese consumers with investable assets of between US$100,000 and US$1 million may jump 10.1 percent from a year ago to 15.3 million by the end of this year, a report said yesterday.
The total private investable capital of this group grew 12.8 percent to 106.2 trillion yuan (US$17.1 trillion) last year and may reach 114.5 trillion yuan by the end of 2015, according to the 2015 Chinese Mass Affluent Report compiled by Forbes China and CreditEase.
The group's average amount of investable assets rose to 1.35 million yuan from 1.31 million yuan last year, and their share in the overall assets grew 1 percentage point to 17.6 percent last year, the report said.
Investments in the stock market, funds and bonds mainly drove the growth of investable assets in 2014, compared with a major capital injection in real estate sector and deposits in the past two years.
Shi Guowei, research head at Forbes and the report's author, also highlighted that wealth-management products and Internet finance flourished with a bull run in Shanghai and Shenzhen last year.
About 73.2 percent of the group owned wealth-management products.
Internet finance was favored notably as 55.6 percent of the respondents said they had invested in the sector due to lower barrier and convenience.
Nearly 58.4 percent of those who invested in the sector chose Internet monetary fund while 43.8 percent of them bought online peer-to-peer lending products.
Alternative investments such as art or private equity became more popular among the group, as over 60 percent of them were considering buying artistic works and 43.9 percent were looking at private equities.
Nearly 10 percent of the group have considered foreign investment, the report said.
It showed those in their 30s to 40s making up three-fifths of the total number in the group.
The report surveyed 1,149 respondents from January to March. It did not include private capital in the country's shadow banking system.
