India's financial hub Mumbai is emerging as one of the "world capitals of the future", with an expanding industrial base, the world's largest movie industry and a burgeoning middle class making the city globally prominent, a latest study has said.

Other Indian cities, Bangalore and Hyderabad, also find mention along with Mumbai with the two cities having "leveraged software and business services into a seemingly unstoppable growth engine," according to a Forbes.com report.

"Mumbai's prominence rests not just on an expanding industrial base, but also on the illustrious Bollywood, the world's largest movie industry. The bust of Mumbai's ridiculous housing-price boom has actually seemed to help the economy," the report by Forbes columnist and presidential fellow at Chapman University, Joel Kotkin said.

While the gulf between the extremely wealthy and destitute remains deep in Mumbai, a burgeoning middle class is helping reshape the economy, Kotkin said, adding that "Small vehicle, motorcycle and modest-apartment sales are all on the rise."

"India's major cities, which still have some of the world's worst slums, may have built the broadest economic base out of the cities on our list".

Other cities making the cut are Beijing, Calgary, Dallas, Dubai, Houston, Moscow, Perth, Sao Paulo and Shanghai.

"In less than a lifetime, we have seen the rapid rise of a host of dynamic new global cities -- and the relative decline of many others. The world capitals of tomorrow may largely be not in the Western world, but in countries such as China, Russia and Australia," the report said.

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