How Few Thai Industry Sections Hold 90% of Revenue (2026)
In short
Six of Thailand's 21 industry sections are enough to reach 90 percent of all reported company revenue, as of 17 Jul 2026. Wholesale and retail trade alone supplies 48.3 percent of the total, and manufacturing adds another 31.4 percent. Five sections together stall at 89.4 percent, just short of the mark, until information and communication tips the running total past 90 percent. Those six sections hold only 70.6 percent of companies with a classified industry, so roughly a third of the register produces less than a tenth of the revenue.
How many industry sections does it take to reach 90 percent of revenue?
Six. Rank Thailand's 21 ISIC industry sections from the top by reported revenue and stack them up, and the running total clears 90 percent at the sixth section (DBD, 2026). Wholesale and retail trade sits alone at the top with 48.3 percent of all company revenue. Manufacturing follows at 31.4 percent, and the two together already cover 79.7 percent before any other section is added. Financial and insurance, construction and transportation and storage each add a few more points, and by the fifth section the total reaches only 89.4 percent, a hair below the threshold. Information and communication, a section worth just 1.7 percent on its own, is what pushes the cumulative total to 91.1 percent. The other 15 sections, from real estate down to households, split the remaining nine percent between them.
Share of national revenue by industry section
- Wholesale and retail trade48
- Manufacturing31
- Financial and insurance4
- Construction3
- Transportation and storage3
- Information and communication2
- Real estate2
- Administrative and support1
- Professional, scientific and technical1
- Accommodation and food service1
- Electricity and gas1
- Human health and social work1
- Agriculture, forestry and fishing1
- Mining and quarrying1
- Water supply and waste0
- Arts, entertainment and recreation0
- Other service activities0
- Education0
- Public administration0
- Extraterritorial0
- Households0
Figures in percent of total reported revenue.
Wholesale and retail trade and manufacturing together cover four out of every five baht. Everything past the sixth bar barely moves the total.
All 21 sections, ranked by revenue, with the running total
| Rank | Industry section | Companies | Revenue (trillion baht) | Cumulative share |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Wholesale and retail trade | 715,976 | 39 | 48.3% |
| 2 | Manufacturing | 230,396 | 25 | 79.7% |
| 3 | Financial and insurance | 35,567 | 3 | 83.8% |
| 4 | Construction | 283,534 | 2 | 86.7% |
| 5 | Transportation and storage | 85,273 | 2 | 89.4% |
| 6 | Information and communication | 52,537 | 1 | 91.1% |
| 7 | Real estate | 149,608 | 1 | 92.6% |
| 8 | Administrative and support | 100,691 | 1 | 94.0% |
| 9 | Professional, scientific and technical | 138,962 | 1 | 95.4% |
| 10 | Accommodation and food service | 83,598 | 1 | 96.5% |
| 11 | Electricity and gas | 7,833 | 1 | 97.6% |
| 12 | Human health and social work | 17,294 | 1 | 98.2% |
| 13 | Agriculture, forestry and fishing | 19,259 | 0 | 98.8% |
| 14 | Mining and quarrying | 8,231 | 0 | 99.4% |
| 15 | Water supply and waste | 4,818 | 0 | 99.6% |
| 16 | Arts, entertainment and recreation | 18,486 | 0 | 99.7% |
| 17 | Other service activities | 20,455 | 0 | 99.8% |
| 18 | Education | 13,897 | 0 | 99.9% |
| 19 | Public administration | 38 | 0 | 99.9% |
| 20 | Extraterritorial | 4 | 0 | 99.9% |
| 21 | Households | 32 | 0 | 99.9% |
Sections ranked from the largest by reported revenue, as of 17 Jul 2026. The cumulative share crosses 90 percent at rank 6.
Why this matters
Thailand already showed a lopsided map at the province level, where 13 of 77 provinces cover 90 percent of revenue and Bangkok alone supplies 63.1 percent. The industry axis tells the same story from a different angle, and the imbalance runs even deeper. Six sections out of 21 hold 91.1 percent of revenue, but those same six sections hold only 70.6 percent of the companies with a classified industry. The other 583,206 companies, nearly 30 percent of the classified register, are splitting less than nine percent of revenue among 15 sections. A policymaker asking where Thailand's corporate tax base or credit exposure actually sits gets a sharper answer from this ranking than from a simple sector list. A lender or a trade body sizing a market outside wholesale, retail or manufacturing should expect a long, thin tail rather than a broad middle. The concentration is not a quirk of one snapshot either. Wholesale and retail trade and manufacturing have anchored the top of Thailand's company register for years, and NESDC's national accounts show manufacturing alone contributing roughly a third of GDP, so the pattern in company revenue tracks the pattern in the wider economy (NESDC, 2026).
Definitions
- ISIC section
- One of 21 broad industry categories, labelled with a letter from A to U, used to classify every registered company by its main business activity. Examples include G for wholesale and retail trade and C for manufacturing.
- Cumulative revenue share
- The running total of revenue held by the top N sections, expressed as a percentage of national revenue, once sections are ranked from largest to smallest.
- Classified industry section
- A company that has been assigned one of the 21 ISIC section codes in the registry. About 1.99 million companies are registered, and 1,986,489 of them carry a classified section.
- Aggregate revenue
- The sum of reported revenue across every company in a group, such as a section, rather than an average of individual company figures.
Assumptions
- Revenue figures include only companies that filed a financial statement, so unfiled or dormant companies contribute zero to the totals used here.
- The sum of the 21 section revenues is 0.09 percent below the published national total revenue figure, a small gap consistent with normal timing differences between the two aggregate tables, and it does not change which sections cross the 90 percent line.
- Revenue is not netted for transactions between related companies within the same corporate group, so a small amount of double counting is possible within any section.
- Rankings reflect a single snapshot as of 17 July 2026 and can shift modestly as new financial statements are filed.
Methodology
Revenue by industry section is drawn from market_section_insight in the DBD-sourced registry, which aggregates reported revenue for every company classified into one of Thailand's 21 lettered ISIC industry sections, as of 17 Jul 2026. Sections were ranked from largest to smallest by total revenue and summed cumulatively against the national total revenue figure in market_national_insight to find the minimum number of sections whose running total first clears 90 percent. Revenue reflects filed financial statement data as compiled by the registry and is not adjusted for intercompany transactions within a group.
How we verified this
- Summed all 21 section revenues from market_section_insight: 80,075,153,974,806 baht, within 0.09 percent of the 80,146,498,562,464 baht national total in market_national_insight, confirming the section list is complete and no section was double counted.
- Recomputed the cumulative share against the national total section by section: rank 5 (wholesale and retail trade through transportation and storage) reaches 89.40 percent, and rank 6 (adding information and communication) reaches 91.07 percent, confirming 6 is the minimum count that clears 90 percent.
- Summed entity_count for the top 6 sections: 715,976 plus 230,396 plus 35,567 plus 283,534 plus 85,273 plus 52,537 equals 1,403,283 companies, which is 70.64 percent of the 1,986,489 companies with a classified industry section, itself confirmed as the sum of entity_count across all 21 sections.
References
- Department of Business Development. (2026). Registered juristic persons and financial statement aggregates. Ministry of Commerce, Thailand. https://www.dbd.go.th/
- National Economic and Social Development Council. (2026). Thai economic performance in Q4 of 2025 and the outlook for 2026. NESDC. https://www.nesdc.go.th/en/download/press-release-47/?ddl=99987
Frequently asked questions
How many industry sections make up 90 percent of Thailand's company revenue?
Six of the 21 ISIC sections. Ranked from largest by revenue, wholesale and retail trade, manufacturing, financial and insurance, construction, transportation and storage, and information and communication together reach 91.1 percent.
Which single industry section contributes the most revenue in Thailand?
Wholesale and retail trade, at 48.3 percent of all reported company revenue, more than every other section combined except manufacturing.
Do the top 6 revenue sections also hold most of Thailand's companies?
No. They hold 70.6 percent of companies with a classified industry section, which means the other 29.4 percent of companies, spread across 15 sections, produce under 9 percent of revenue between them.
How does industry concentration compare with province concentration in Thailand?
It takes 13 of 77 provinces to reach 90 percent of revenue, which is 16.9 percent of all provinces. It takes 6 of 21 industry sections to hit the same mark, which is 28.6 percent of all sections. On that proportional basis revenue is more concentrated by province than by industry section, even though the raw count of provinces needed is higher.
Cite this page
Chatpong L. (2026). How Few Thai Industry Sections Hold 90% of Revenue (2026). Max Data Insights. https://maxdatathailand.com/insights/how-few-thai-industry-sections-hold-90-percent-of-revenue-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.