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Merrick, NY—The 2013 Wealth Report, an annual survey conducted by the global real estate investment firm Knight Frank, was released this spring. In an essay for The Luxury Society, Elite Traveler magazine co-founder and publisher Doug Gollan evaluates the study’s findings, one of which is that among the ultra-high net worth set (more than $30 million in net assets), luxury watches are second only to fine art when it comes to a passion for investing and collecting. Jewelry also ranked in the top five categories of luxury goods consumption among this coveted demographic, coming in at number four behind art, watches, and wine, but ahead of classic cars, at number five. Sports teams, furniture, stamps, and coins rounded out the top nine passions for this demographic.

Here is a summary of Gollan’s key observations from the study:

• The recent economic turmoil wreaked havoc with the aspirational affluent set (under $400,000 annual income), but global ultra-high net worth (UHNW) individuals increased their fortunes by $566 billion in the past year alone. To put that in perspective, their gain in wealth is 28 times more than the total export of Swiss luxury watches.
• The total number of UHNW families increased 2% since the previous year, with growth in every region—including Europe and North America. The population of the global super-rich is projected to grow another 50% by 2022.
• The top 30 cities for UHNWs are truly global, with a fair number of U.S. representatives among them. New York is number-one, followed by London, Tokyo, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Beijing, Mumbai, Hong Kong, Sao Paolo, and Rio de Janeiro. But Chicago ranked number 15, Houston, number 17, Washington, DC, 18, Dallas, 19, and Toronto, 20.
• Sustained high youth unemployment in the West means the next generation of would-be luxury consumers may remain just that: would-be. With many Millennials struggling to find a job, not buying designer handbags, those who don’t fall into the UHNW category may ultimately enjoy a far less prosperous lifestyle than their parents. (Editor’s note: According to the U.S. Census Bureau, there are almost twice as many consumers (3.1 million) age 35-54 with incomes over $250,000 as under age 35 (1.6 million). Two million consumers over age 55 fit the demographic.)
• UHNW consumers are global consumers—they’re not tied to their native country but rather will migrate anywhere in the world in search of opportunity. 85% of Asians and 81% of Latin Americans send their children abroad to be educated, primarily to North America or Europe.
• Increased investment in real estate among UHNW consumers also means they’ll be hopping on board their private jets to get to their various holdings, and also shopping in the cities where their investments are.
• Most media ad budgets are still spent targeting aspirational consumers. Gollan recommends luxury marketers focus on how to get more money from the consumers who have plenty of it rather than continuing to focus on those whose tastes exceed their wallets.

Read his entire commentary here.

Separately, a spring 2013 study from Unity Marketing emphasizes the need for luxury businesses to be fully up-to-date with their digital and mobile strategies. While the percentage of affluent consumers who use the Internet for buying goods and services didn’t change dramatically year-on-year, what did change was how they access the Internet—increasingly, via mobile devices.  Use of tablets and smartphones rocketed 50% from the prior year’s study.