How Few Industry Codes Hold Half of Thailand's Large Companies 2026
In short
Fifty one industry codes hold half of Thailand's 13,875 large companies, as of 17 July 2026. That is just 6.9 percent of the 737 codes that carry any large company at all, and 4.2 percent of every one of the 1,228 five digit codes in the registry. Another 491 codes have never produced a single large company. Wholesale and retail trade supplies 27 of the top 51 codes on its own. Large company ownership concentrates less than the registry's full company count or its assets, though still more than its profit does.
How many industry codes does it take to hold half of Thailand's large companies?
Fifty one industry codes hold half of Thailand's large companies, as of 17 July 2026 (DBD, 2026). Thailand classifies its companies into 1,228 five digit industry codes. Only 737 of those codes contain even one large company. The other 491 codes have never produced a single one, 40.0 percent of the entire list. Rank the 737 codes that do have a large company by how many they hold, and the top 51 already reach 6,945 of the nation's 13,875 large companies. That is a cumulative share of 50.05 percent. Fifty one codes works out to 6.9 percent of the codes that carry any large company at all, and 4.2 percent of every code in the system. The distribution among those 737 codes is lopsided on its own. The median code holds just six large companies, and 126 of them, 17.1 percent, hold exactly one. Wholesale and retail trade supplies 27 of the top 51 codes by itself.
How the top industry codes stack up to half of Thailand's large companies
Figures in percent of all large companies.
The cumulative line crosses 50 percent at the 51st code and keeps climbing as more codes join the ranking.
Top 15 industry codes by large company count
| TSIC code | Industry section | Large companies | Cumulative share |
|---|---|---|---|
| 45101 | Wholesale and retail trade | 520 | 3.75% |
| 29309 | Manufacturing | 427 | 6.83% |
| 47732 | Wholesale and retail trade | 260 | 8.70% |
| 41002 | Construction | 229 | 10.35% |
| 46622 | Wholesale and retail trade | 202 | 11.81% |
| 10611 | Manufacturing | 188 | 13.16% |
| 46900 | Wholesale and retail trade | 188 | 14.52% |
| 64202 | Financial and insurance | 188 | 15.87% |
| 35101 | Electricity and gas | 181 | 17.17% |
| 46599 | Wholesale and retail trade | 176 | 18.44% |
| 46313 | Wholesale and retail trade | 165 | 19.63% |
| 46321 | Wholesale and retail trade | 165 | 20.82% |
| 22299 | Manufacturing | 163 | 22.00% |
| 46691 | Wholesale and retail trade | 163 | 23.17% |
| 55101 | Accommodation and food service | 163 | 24.35% |
Five digit TSIC codes ranked by large company count, with running cumulative share of Thailand's 13,875 large companies, as of 17 Jul 2026.
How does this compare with profit and asset concentration?
This cut is sharper than the one behind Thailand's profit concentration. Two of the country's 21 industry sections already generate more than half of national net profit, just 9.5 percent of all sections (DBD, 2026). Fifty one large company codes out of 737 eligible ones is 6.9 percent, a smaller share of its own pool than profit needs. It is not the sharpest concentration on record. Twelve of the 997 five digit codes with reported asset data hold half of the country's corporate balance sheet, just 1.2 percent of that pool. The plain company count is sharper still. Forty five of Thailand's 1,228 codes hold half of every registered company, large or small, just 3.7 percent of the full code list. Large companies need 4.2 percent of that same list to reach half, a wider spread than the full company count needs. Large companies sit between that full company count and profit. Their presence concentrates slower than the registry as a whole, but faster than profit does.
Why this matters
Large enterprises already stand apart in Thailand. They make up under 1 percent of all firms yet generate 60 percent of gross domestic product and 86 percent of exports (OECD, 2025). This page shows that even inside that elite group, the codes that produce them are lopsided too. A bank, a matchmaking platform or a trade body that organizes itself around the wrong five digit code is effectively ignoring most of the large corporate economy. New large companies rarely appear in a code that has never held one before. They are far more likely to emerge from one of the 737 codes with a proven track record than from one of the 491 that has never produced a single large member. That makes the top 51 codes a genuinely useful shortlist for anyone trying to find or serve Thailand's biggest companies without reading every row of a 1,228 code table.
Definitions
- Large company
- The largest of DBD's four size bands, alongside micro, small and medium, assigned from a company's filed revenue and assets.
- Size band
- DBD's classification of a company as micro, small, medium or large, based on its financial filings rather than its industry.
- Five digit industry code
- The most detailed level of Thailand's Standard Industrial Classification, sitting beneath the 21 one letter industry sections such as manufacturing or wholesale and retail trade.
- Cumulative share
- The running total of large companies held by the top ranked codes so far, expressed as a percentage of the national total.
- Concentration
- How unevenly a total, such as a count of large companies, is spread across categories such as industry codes. A concentrated total sits mostly inside a small number of categories.
Assumptions
- This page counts only companies with both a classified five digit industry code and an assigned size band.
- The 491 codes with zero large companies are still counted in the 1,228 total, since a code with no large member is still a valid part of the classification.
- Aggregate tables refresh periodically, so the national large company total and the code level counts can move by small amounts between runs.
Methodology
Large company counts come from market_tsic_insight, an aggregate table of DBD registry data grouped by five digit TSIC industry code. A company sits in the large band under DBD's own four way size classification, alongside micro, small and medium, derived from its filed revenue and assets. This page ranks the 737 five digit codes that hold at least one large company by their large company count, in descending order, and sums that count until it first reaches half of the national total of 13,875. Codes with zero large companies are excluded from the ranking but counted separately in the 1,228 code total. Figures are as of 17 Jul 2026, the latest refresh of the aggregate tables. Because the underlying registry is refreshed periodically, small revisions to these counts between runs are expected. Every share and ratio on this page is recomputed directly from the raw counts, not read from a precomputed column.
How we verified this
- 737 codes with at least one large company plus 491 codes with zero large companies sums to 1,228, the full count of five digit industry codes, confirming every code is accounted for.
- Ranking the 737 codes by large company count and summing in order gives a running total of 6,884 at the 50th code and 6,945 at the 51st code. Half of 13,875 is 6,937.5, so 51 is the minimum number of codes needed to clear it.
- 6,945 divided by 13,875 recomputes to 50.05 percent, matching the reported cumulative share at the 51st code.
- 51 divided by 1,228 recomputes to 4.2 percent, and 51 divided by 737 recomputes to 6.9 percent, the two denominators used in this page.
- Summing the large company counts of the 27 wholesale and retail trade codes inside the top 51 gives 3,762, which recomputes to 27.1 percent of the 13,875 national total and 54.2 percent of the top 51 group's own subtotal of 6,945.
- Among the 737 codes with at least one large company, 126 hold exactly one. 126 divided by 737 recomputes to 17.1 percent.
- 491 divided by 1,228 recomputes to 40.0 percent, the share of codes with zero large companies.
References
- Department of Business Development. (2026). Registered juristic persons and financial statement aggregates. Ministry of Commerce, Thailand. https://www.dbd.go.th/
- OECD. (2025). OECD Capital Market Review of Thailand 2025: The corporate sector. OECD Publishing. https://www.oecd.org/en/publications/oecd-capital-market-review-of-thailand-2025_0a975590-en/full-report/the-corporate-sector_008c96e5.html
Frequently asked questions
How many industry codes hold half of Thailand's large companies?
Fifty one of Thailand's 1,228 five digit industry codes hold half of the 13,875 large companies on the register, as of 17 Jul 2026.
How many industry codes have no large companies at all?
491 of Thailand's 1,228 industry codes, 40.0 percent of the total, have never held a single large company.
Which industry supplies the most codes to that top 51?
Wholesale and retail trade supplies 27 of the top 51 codes and accounts for 27.1 percent of every large company in Thailand.
Is large company concentration sharper than profit or asset concentration?
It is sharper than profit concentration, where 9.5 percent of industry sections are needed to reach half. It is milder than asset concentration, where just 1.2 percent of codes with asset data reach half.
Cite this page
Chatpong L. (2026). How Few Industry Codes Hold Half of Thailand's Large Companies 2026. Max Data Insights. https://maxdatathailand.com/insights/how-few-industry-codes-hold-half-of-thailands-large-companies-2026
Data & corrections
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Written by
Chatpong L.Founder, Max Data, Max Solutions Co., Ltd.
Chatpong L. leads Max Data, a company-intelligence platform built on Thailand's official business registry. He writes about the structure of the Thai economy using primary registry data. His work covers company formation, industry concentration, and regional business activity.
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This page reports company-level and aggregate statistics only. It names no individuals and makes no claims about any person. Figures are provided for information and may be revised as source data updates.