Asia's rich splurged on more than 8 million cars and made nearly 4 million leisure trips from July last year to June this year, spending 38.5 million nights in hotels, a survey released showed showed.
The global market research firm Synovate found there are almost 13 million big spenders in Hong Kong, Singapore, South Korea, Japan, Taiwan, Malaysia, the Philippines, Thailand, Indonesia, India and Australia.
Their combined annual personal income is US$209.8 billion.
The survey tracked the spending patterns of the top 20 percent of income earners in each of the economies. The findings were published in The Straits Times.
"In Tokyo, for instance, it is about upgrading -- about multiple ownership of high-end items," Steve Garton, Synovate Asia-Pacific's director, told The Straits Times.
"In Hong Kong, some of these goods act as a status symbol."
As for Singapore's rich, they "are a practical lot," he said.
The wealthy there have a smaller budget compared with those in Hong Kong. Their average annual household income of US$53,400 is nearly half of Hong Kong's US$98,600 but higher than Malaysia's US$44,100 and Thailand's US$38,900. In addition, 9.5 percent of Singapore's rich said they intended to buy a car within the next year, compared with Thailand's 28.9 percent and Malaysia's 24.5 percent.
More than half of those surveyed in Hong Kong and Thailand own a flat-screen television, but less than 25 percent of the Singaporeans do.
Cairo’s new monorail slices across the city skyline, running above the familiar chaos of blaring horns and aging buses’ exhaust fumes that mark rush hour below. The US$4.5 billion monorail, opened this month, is among Egypt’s most prominent new transport projects, part of a debt-funded infrastructure drive criticized for sapping state finances while bringing limited benefits to most of the country’s 109 million people. “It feels like you’re in a different country,” said Ramy Sayed, a restaurant manager, aboard a driverless Innovia 300 train. “No noise, no traffic, we’re not used to this.” The eastern line runs 56km from the bustling middle-class
Starlux Airlines Co (星宇航空) today unveiled a long-haul network expansion plan at a shareholders’ meeting in Taipei, including direct flights to Barcelona, Spain, and Zurich, Switzerland, as well as a service connecting Taipei, Sydney and New Zealand. Starlux is to become the first Taiwanese carrier to offer non-stop services to the two European cities, while the inaugural oceanic route is expected to expand transit opportunities within the Australia-New Zealand market, Starlux said. Flight services to Chicago, Dallas, Washington and New York are under evaluation, the airline added. Prior to the shareholders’ meeting, the airline earlier this year announced that it would be
Taiwanese prosecutors suspect that three people successfully smuggled at least one shipment of Nvidia Corp artificial intelligence (AI) chips to China after first exporting them to Japan, people familiar with the matter said. The trio was detained last week by the Keelung District Prosecutors’ Office for allegedly falsifying documents related to exports of Super Micro Computer Inc servers containing advanced Nvidia chips, which the US has barred from sale to China without a license from Washington. The move marked Taiwan’s first public crackdown on AI chip diversion after years of pressure from the US to take a more active role in curtailing
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) employee bonuses are likely to grow more than 30 percent this year, in line with the past few years as the company’s profits continue to set new records, an anonymous source cited TSMC chairman C.C. Wei (魏哲家) as saying yesterday. TSMC, the world’s largest contract chipmaker, is committed to taking care of its workers, the source said, citing Wei’s meeting with employees yesterday morning. Wei also expressed gratitude to employees for their contribution to the company’s improving bottom line, the source added. Since 2023, TSMC’s employee bonuses have grown at an annual rate of
RSS