Profit Margin Gaps Within Thai Industry Sectors in 2026
In short
Agriculture's profit margins swing 51.45 percentage points between its narrowest industry codes, the widest gap of any Thai sector with enough codes to compare, as of 7 July 2026. Manufacturing's 379 codes span just 12.6 points, one of the tightest clusters in the economy. Information and communication's 53 codes span 27.14 points, more than double manufacturing's range. A sector label hides real variation, and how much it hides depends on which sector you pick.
How wide is the margin gap inside one Thai sector?
Pick any single letter of Thailand's 21 industry sections and its overall net margin looks like one steady number. Underneath that letter sits a scatter of five digit TSIC codes that can pull in opposite directions. Comparing the middle 80 percent of codes in each sector, measured from the 10th to the 90th percentile of net margin, shows how far that scatter actually runs. Manufacturing's 379 codes span just 12.6 percentage points from the bottom tenth to the top tenth, one of the tightest ranges in the economy (DBD, 2026). Agriculture's 87 codes span 51.45 points, more than four times wider. Information and communication's 53 codes span 27.14 points, more than double manufacturing's range. A sector label hides real variation, and how much it hides depends entirely on which sector you pick.
Margin spread within each sector, 10th to 90th percentile
- Agriculture51
- Financial and insurance50
- Mining and quarrying43
- Education40
- Information and communication27
- Administrative and support24
- Arts, entertainment and recreation23
- Transportation and storage23
- Other service activities22
- Construction20
- Human health and social work19
- Professional, scientific and technical16
- Accommodation and food service16
- Manufacturing13
- Wholesale and retail trade7
Figures in percentage points between the 10th and 90th percentile net margin.
Agriculture, finance, mining and education stretch across 40 to 51 points. Manufacturing and wholesale and retail trade barely move.
Margin spread by sector, ranked widest to narrowest
| Sector | Codes compared | Median net margin | P10 to P90 spread |
|---|---|---|---|
| Agriculture | 87 | -3.09% | 51.45 pts |
| Financial and insurance | 39 | 16.66% | 49.69 pts |
| Mining and quarrying | 19 | 2.92% | 42.77 pts |
| Education | 23 | 1.74% | 40.11 pts |
| Information and communication | 53 | 1.39% | 27.14 pts |
| Administrative and support | 50 | 4.11% | 23.91 pts |
| Arts, entertainment and recreation | 18 | 0.66% | 23.31 pts |
| Transportation and storage | 56 | 3.49% | 23.24 pts |
| Other service activities | 29 | 1.40% | 21.80 pts |
| Construction | 30 | 3.30% | 19.93 pts |
| Human health and social work | 20 | 1.90% | 19.30 pts |
| Professional, scientific and technical | 29 | 4.81% | 15.89 pts |
| Accommodation and food service | 19 | 1.22% | 15.69 pts |
| Manufacturing | 379 | 2.58% | 12.60 pts |
| Wholesale and retail trade | 181 | 1.73% | 6.84 pts |
TSIC codes with at least five companies with a filed financial statement, per sector, limited to sectors with at least ten qualifying codes, as of 7 Jul 2026.
Why this matters for anyone reading a sector average
This matters for anyone using a sector average to judge a single business. A manufacturer benchmarking against the section wide margin of 4.37 percent is comparing itself to a fairly narrow band of outcomes, since most of the 379 codes cluster close to that number. A farm operator or a software company doing the same exercise against agriculture's 2.55 percent or information and communication's 5.81 percent sector margin is comparing itself to a far wider field, one where a chunk of codes lose tens of percent and others clear double digit returns in the same year. That gap is not noise. It reflects real differences in weather exposure, capital intensity, subsidy design and how easily a business can raise its prices. A single section letter cannot capture any of that. Anyone reading a Thai industry report by section alone is working from a coarser picture than the underlying five digit codes actually show.
Definitions
- Net margin
- Net profit as a share of revenue. A ten percent margin means ten satang of profit for every baht of revenue.
- TSIC code
- A five digit code in Thailand's Standard Industrial Classification, the most detailed level at which the registry groups companies by business activity.
- Percentile
- A value below which a given share of observations fall. The 10th percentile of a sector's codes is the margin below which the worst performing ten percent of codes sit.
- P10 to P90 spread
- The gap between the 90th percentile and the 10th percentile net margin among a sector's qualifying codes, a measure of variation that ignores the single most extreme code at each end.
- Median margin
- The middle value of net margin when a sector's qualifying codes are sorted from lowest to highest, less sensitive to extreme codes than a simple average.
Assumptions
- Only TSIC codes with at least five companies that filed a financial statement are included, so very small or highly specialized codes with fewer filers are excluded from the spread calculation.
- Net margin is an aggregate ratio of total profit to total revenue within a code, not the average of each company's individual margin, so a handful of large companies can dominate a code's result.
- Five digit TSIC descriptions are not available in the source data, so individual codes are referenced by number and sector only, never by an industry name.
- Sectors with fewer than ten qualifying TSIC codes are excluded from the chart and table as too small a sample for a tenth to ninetieth percentile comparison. This drops electricity and gas, real estate, public administration and households from the ranking even though each has at least one qualifying code.
Methodology
Net margin per industry code is total net profit divided by total revenue for all companies in that five digit TSIC code that filed a financial statement, drawn from the DBD registry as of 7 July 2026. Only codes with at least five companies with a filed statement are included, which narrows manufacturing from 421 raw codes to 379 and applies the same filter across every sector, so a single tiny code cannot dominate the result. Spread is the 90th percentile net margin minus the 10th percentile net margin among a sector's qualifying codes, a range that ignores the single most extreme code at each end. A sector also needs at least ten qualifying codes to appear in this comparison. A percentile spread built from fewer codes swings on one or two data points, which makes it unreliable. That cutoff drops electricity and gas, which has seven qualifying codes. It also drops real estate, which has eight codes, and public administration and households, which have one code each. Real estate's eight codes span a raw 122.80 points from the 10th to the 90th percentile, wider than agriculture's reported spread. That range comes mostly from one code with a net margin near negative 329 percent. The other seven real estate codes cluster between negative 2 percent and positive 27 percent. Eight codes is too thin a sample to call that a genuine sector pattern, so real estate is documented here rather than ranked. Five digit TSIC descriptions are not available in the source data, so codes are referenced by sector and count only, never by an individual industry name.
How we verified this
- Manufacturing's spread was recomputed as 9.34 minus negative 3.26, which equals 12.60 percentage points, matching the reported figure.
- Agriculture's spread was recomputed as 6.97 minus negative 44.48, which equals 51.45 percentage points.
- Agriculture's spread divided by manufacturing's spread is 51.45 divided by 12.60, which equals 4.08, confirming agriculture swings just over four times wider.
- Information and communication's spread was recomputed as 7.05 minus negative 20.09, which equals 27.14 percentage points, about 2.15 times manufacturing's spread.
- Code counts were recomputed directly by counting TSIC rows with at least five companies with a filed financial statement per sector, giving 379 for manufacturing, 87 for agriculture and 53 for information and communication, matching the reported counts.
- Every sector with ten or more qualifying TSIC codes was checked to confirm none exceeds agriculture's 51.45 point spread, and none does. Real estate, which has only eight qualifying codes, computes to a wider raw spread of 122.80 points driven mostly by a single code, which is why it is excluded from the ranking under the ten code minimum and documented separately in the methodology instead.
References
- Department of Business Development. (2026). Registered juristic persons and financial statement aggregates. Ministry of Commerce, Thailand. https://www.dbd.go.th/
- World Bank. (2022). Thailand rural income diagnostic: Challenges and opportunities for rural farmers. World Bank Group. https://www.worldbank.org/en/country/thailand/publication/thailand-rural-income-diagnostic-challenges-and-opportunities-for-rural-farmers
Frequently asked questions
Which Thai industry sector has the widest profit margin spread among its sub industries?
Agriculture, where the gap between the top and bottom tenth of TSIC codes runs 51.45 percentage points, the widest of any sector with enough codes to compare.
Which sector has the most consistent margins across its sub industries?
Manufacturing, whose 379 codes span just 12.6 percentage points from the 10th to the 90th percentile, and wholesale and retail trade, whose 181 codes span only 6.84 points.
Why does information and communication swing so widely?
Its 53 TSIC codes range from a margin near negative 20 percent at the 10th percentile to about positive 7 percent at the 90th, a 27.14 point spread that includes thin margin resale codes alongside far more profitable telecom and software codes.
Does any sector show a wider raw spread than agriculture's 51.45 points?
Real estate's eight qualifying codes span 122.80 points, but that figure sits outside this ranking because a sector needs at least ten qualifying codes for the spread to be reliable, and one real estate code with a net margin near negative 329 percent drives most of that number.
Cite this page
Chatpong L. (2026). Profit Margin Gaps Within Thai Industry Sectors in 2026. Max Data Insights. https://maxdatathailand.com/insights/how-wide-is-the-profit-margin-gap-within-thai-industries-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.