India’s richest man Mukesh Ambani has reclaimed the title of Asia’s richest person from Chinese entrepreneur and ByteDance co-founder Zhang Yiming after Reliance Industries shares surged sharply, raising his estimated wealth.
Forbes’ Real-Time Billionaires List showed that Ambani’s net worth rose to about $88.8 billion (ahead of Zhang Yiming’s $84 billion fortune). His wealth increased by around $8.5 billion after Reliance Industries stock had rallied strongly.
This is an important shift in Asia’s billionaire rankings as the Reliance Industries chairman returns to the top of the pile in the region.
Reliance Industries Shares Drive Ambani's Wealth
The surge in Ambani’s wealth came after Reliance Industries shares jumped nearly 12% on Monday the rally added more than $19 billion to the company’s market cap.
The stock market move followed the company’s strong quarterly results. Reliance Industries had reported impressive numbers for July-September quarter with growth in oil-to-chemicals, digital services and retail businesses.
The company’s numbers beat market expectations and investors started showing more interest in the stock. Analyst at Avendus Spark changed Reliance Industries rating from ‘Reduce’ to ‘Add’ after results were announced.
The sharp rise in the company’s share price directly benefited Ambani whose wealth is tied to his holdings in Reliance Industries.
Jio Platforms' Successful Market Debut Adds Momentum
Another important factor supporting Reliance Industries’ market performance was the successful stock market debut of Jio Platforms.
Jio Platforms, the telecom and digital services arm of Reliance Industries debuted on stock market Oct 28. The shares of Jio rose about 27% during its listing in India’s largest IPO ever.
The IPO raised $3.2 billion giving the company an estimated valuation of about $106B at the time of the offering.
Reliance Industries has an ~66% stake in Jio Platforms. The strong market debut reinforced investor confidence in the broader Reliance group and helped drive momentum around Ambani’s business empire.
Jio is also India’s largest mobile carrier (more than 533 million subscribers as of June 2026).
Zhang Yiming Moves Behind Ambani
Zhang Yiming is the founder of Chinese technology giant ByteDance Asia’s richest person just a few years ago. ByteDance is parent company to popular short-video platform TikTok.
But the latest shift in billionaire wealth rankings put him behind Ambani. Zhang’s $84 billion fortune is now below Ambani’s $88.8 billion.
Ambani has also moved up in the global billionaire rankings (about 23rd place) and Zhang is at 25th on Forbes Real-Time Billionaires List.
The latest rankings show how stock market movements, company valuations and business performance can affect fortunes of the world’s richest people.
Reliance Industries is expanding into telecommunications, retail, energy and digital services so Ambani’s ranking in the global billionaire rankings will continue to be watched. But rankings change as market prices and company valuations do.
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