The number of people worth more than US$1m (£507,000) rose to 10.1 million in 2007, a wealth survey suggests.
Despite the growing credit crisis, there were 600,000 more members of the global millionaires' club than there were a year earlier.
Their combined wealth also rose, by 9.4% to $40.7 trillion, according to Merrill Lynch and Cap Gemini.
The fast-growing economies of India, China and Brazil saw the biggest rises in the number of wealthy individuals.
The number worth more than $30m increased by 8.8%, while their total wealth grew by 14.5%.
"It was a year of two halves," said Ileana Van Der Linde from Cap Gemini. "We saw divergent paths starting in July."
The financial turmoil which began in the summer of last year and saw the decline of the US housing market and a crisis in the world's credit markets hit developed economies hard in the second half of 2007.
But the report indicated that emerging economies continued to be relatively robust.
Despite concerns about slowing economic growth this year, the report also predicted that the wealth of the world's richest people would total $59.1 trillion by 2012, an average annual growth rate of 7.7%.
Article taken from http://news.bbc.co.uk/
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