How Has Persian Gulf Wealth Adjusted to the Iran War?

Even with a closed Strait of Hormuz, some Dubai residents are still getting their Ferraris. As you might expect, though, when flown in, a Ferrari’s shipping costs multiply by 4 or 5 times. By contrast, Bentley said it had enough inventory in the area to satisfy demand whereas Rolls Royce was more oblique when it said it would do its best.

According to the Financial Times, airlifted Ferraris heading for the Persian Gulf are highly personalized. To see what that meant, I visited the “Create Your Own Ferrari” website. In addition to offering a choice of “fabrics, leathers, woods, colours and finishes,” the exterior can also be unique. Or, as they explained, “YOUR CAR, YOUR PERSONALITY.”

Persian Gulf Luxury

At more than 6%, Ferrari is third among the luxury retailers that depend on the Middle East for a hefty slice of their sinking sales. Correspondingly, many of the Dubai Mall’s 1200 shops are empty.

Sales in the United Arab Emirates from Russian, Chinese, and Indian tourists dominate these luxury brands’ Middle Eastern revenue:

Meanwhile, Dior and Gucci (excluding beauty and multi-brand stores) products look to the Middle East for 20% of their sales and recent Bloomingdale’s traffic sunk by 45%.

Our Bottom Line: The Top 1%

Personalized Ferraris take us to global wealth and the top of the pyramid:

According to the UBS Wealth Report 2025, global wealth slumped in 2022 and then rebounded, especially in the Middle East, Europe, and Africa (EMEA) during 2023. Then though, in 2024, North America felt global wealth tilt in its direction. Still, UBS tells us that the U.S. and China had the most wealth.

And they gave us a word to remember: EMILLI. Referring to the Everyday Millionaire, from 2000 to 2024, the number of people with a net worth between $1 million and $5 million quadrupled to 52 million. At 5.8%, the United Emirates was #2 in the UBS study for its increase in EMILLIs.

So, where are we? Whether it’s oil, natural gas, urea, sulfuric acid, or Ferraris, the Iran War certainly has unintended consequences.

My sources and more: Thanks to my FT fashion email subscription for inspiring today’s post. From there we continued looking at luxury brands and then discovered an entire world of Ferrari personalization. Predictably, it all took us to global wealth reports, here for UBS, and here. And finally, econlife also looked at global wealth.