After Maybachs and RollsRoyces, the swish set in India is now displaying a fondness for luxury flying machines even if it means shelling out an astounding $80 million to buy one.

In the past one month, sensing a big business opportunity, three international business jet firms have entered India to tap the fast-growing market in the country.

U.S.-based Aerion, which is developing a high-end supersonic business jet (SSBJ), has received pre-delivery orders from five Indian customers. The deliveries are to begin from the last quarter of 2014.

“There is a lot of logic in having a supersonic business jet product in India with the young generation of wealthy entrepreneurs building global empires,” said Peter Smales, executive director of Zurich-based Execujet, which is distributing the SSBJ outside North America.

With India’s annual economic growth crossing eight per cent and India being placed fourth in the number of Forbes’ list of world’s billionaires with 53 billionaires, the country demonstrates higher growth potential than the U.S. and China.

However, there is no exact figure for business jets in India. The Centre for Asia Pacific Aviation estimates that there are about 180 aircraft registered for private, corporate and charter purposes.