Web tycoons move up rich list

Property developers slide downwards

China's fast-growing Internet sector has moved ahead of property development as the top wealth generator, according to a new list of the country's richest people unveiled on Tuesday.

Entrepreneurs at China's Internet giants occupied the top three positions on the China Rich List 2014, released by Forbes China magazine.

The list ranks the country's richest 400 people for this year, whose personal wealth was at least $697 million, up 17 percent from 2013. The list is calculated on the basis of the market value of listed companies or the estimated value of private firms.

Fifty-year-old Jack Ma Yun, founder and chairman of Alibaba Group, -China's largest e-commerce provider in terms of sales revenue, topped the list with personal wealth of $19.5 billion. Ma was ranked eighth richest in 2013.

Alibaba launched the world's largest-ever IPO on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) in September, raising $25 billion.

Robin Li Yanhong, chairman of search engine Baidu Inc, advanced by one spot this year to rank as China's second-richest man, with personal wealth of nearly $14.7 billion. The NASDAQ-listed company hit a record high of $228 per share on September 18, boosting Li's wealth.

Pony Ma Huateng, CEO and chairman of Internet giant Tencent, ranked third on the list with net worth of $14.4 billion, rising from fifth place last year.

Richard Liu Qiangdong, CEO of online retailer JD.com Inc, also made it into the top 10 this year, advancing from No.98 last year thanks to the ballooning market value after an IPO for his firm on the NYSE in May.

The successful IPO of jumei.com, an online cosmetics and skin care retailer, on the NYSE in May made 31-year-old company CEO Leo Chen Ou China's youngest billionaire, with a net worth of $1.3 billion.

Amid the rise of Internet technology entrepreneurs, property development tycoons have lost their once-dominant position on the rich list because of the country's cooling property market, Zhou Jiangong, editor-in-chief of Forbes China magazine, told the Global Times on Tuesday.

Last year's No.1 on the list, Wang Jianlin, slipped three notches this year due to a drop in value of the commercial real estate owned by his company, Dalian Wanda Group.

Yang Huiyan, the largest shareholder in Guangdong-based property developer Country Garden Holdings and No.7 on 2013 list, dropped to No.19 with her wealth also shrinking amid the cooling property market.

"With the shrinking of the property bubble, other securitized assets will see faster wealth growth in China," Zhou said.

Billionaires in areas including auto making, consumer electronics and heavy equipment manufacturing also saw a drop in their wealth this year, according to Forbes magazine.

China is going through a boom in Internet and technology services amid its economic restructuring similar to what happened in the US in the past, but the pace of China's Internet development has been much faster, he noted.

Tech firms with high market value tend to automatically inflate personal wealth, just like Facebook's CEO Mark Zuckerberg, whose wealth soared after the IPO of his social media company, Li Yi, secretary-general of the China Mobile Internet Industry Alliance, told the Global Times on Tuesday.

"But founders of Internet giants in China will not hold onto the top three positions for a long time," Li noted.

The companies with the highest market value in the US are Apple Inc and ExxonMobil, which create high added value, Li said, noting that Internet giants in China must integrate into traditional businesses and industries in order to create more value.

Some people in the Internet industry were less successful than others. Charles Zhang Chaoyang, chairman and CEO of NASDAQ-listed news portal sohu.com, was not included in this year's rich list.

Internet firms with specific areas of core competence have better market value than more general information portals, Dong Xu, an analyst at Analysys International, told the Global Times on Tuesday. For instance, Baidu's strength is its search engine, Tencent has advantages with its social media platforms, and Alibaba is strong in online transactions, Dong noted.

The next round of Internet opportunities will come from combining with traditional businesses to offer better services, with competition expanding into the overall ecosystem rather than a single business model, Dong said.