Wealth

The places South Africa’s richest people love to spend their money

Staff Writer

 ·13 May 2017

South Africa’s high net worth individuals have a lot of money to spend, and they are not afraid to to go big on a number of luxury purchases – from private game farms, overseas properties to luxury cars and brands.

The latest wealth report, compiled by New World Wealth, shows which luxury purchases are most popular among South Africa’s most affluent people.

According to the group, the ‘affluent’ community (those with a net worth higher than $100,000) in South Africa is growing, which is pushing growth in a number of sectors which a geared towards serving them.

These include retirement estates, luxury apartments and hotel residences.

The last 12 months (2016 and early 2017) have also proven to be good news for the luxury vehicle space – while South Africa’s richest plough money into other luxury brands, and luxury trips.

HWNIs outside of South Africa are also increasingly buying luxury property in the country, NWW noted.

The research group listed the most popular luxury apartments and hotel residences in South Africa in 2016 among the country’s rich, as well as the most popular luxury cars and brands in the country:.

Hotel residences refer to apartments/villas in existing hotels which can be purchased. They essentially allow owners to live in a hotel permanently and enjoy the same services as normal guests do (i.e. room service, dining, cleaning etc.).

Top luxury apartments and hotel residences in SA

A large portion of SA luxury sector revenue comes from luxury hotels and lodges. Notably, during 2016 South Africa received approximately 15,000 multimillionaire visitors from other countries, the highest in Africa by some margin.

Morocco was second with 5,000 followed by Kenya with 4,000.

Major destinations for wealthy people visiting SA include: Kruger Park area, Cape Town, Johannesburg, Umhlanga, Durban, Paarl, Franschoek, Stellenbosch and the Garden Route.

Top luxury cars in South Africa

Top luxury brands in South Africa

South Africa also has ‘luxury food stores’, which is an area well developed in the country, especially when compared to the rest of Africa and other major emerging markets such as India and Brazil.

However, one company dominates the local market, namely, Woolworths. Woolworths is modeled on and part-owned by Marks & Spencer in the UK.

Other popular luxury food stores are the Bread Basket, Jackson’s Real Food and Thrupps, NWW ntoed.

Read: Fastest growing countries in Africa for wealth