Share of Large Companies by Industry Section in Thailand 2026
In short
Electricity and gas carries the highest share of large companies of any Thai industry section, at 2.44 percent as of 17 July 2026. Manufacturing follows at 2.05 percent and financial and insurance at 1.56 percent. Construction, the second largest section by company count with 283,564 firms, holds one of the lowest shares at just 0.20 percent. Across all 21 sections the economy-wide share of large companies is 0.70 percent.
Which sector has the highest share of large companies?
Electricity and gas beats every other Thai industry section on one measure: the share of its companies classified as large, at 2.44 percent (DBD, 2026). Manufacturing follows at 2.05 percent, then financial and insurance at 1.56 percent. Human health and social work and water and waste both clear one percent. Large firms cluster where the business itself demands scale. A power grid, a factory line and a bank balance sheet all need heavy capital before they can operate at all, so a bigger slice of their companies cross the large threshold. Sectors built on small, easily replicated operations, such as other services, education and arts and entertainment, barely register any large firms at all.
Share of companies classified as large, by industry section
- Electricity and gas2
- Manufacturing2
- Financial and insurance2
- Human health and social work1
- Water and waste1
- Wholesale and retail trade1
- Mining and quarrying1
- Agriculture, forestry and fishing1
- Transportation and storage1
- Information and communication0
- Accommodation and food service0
- Real estate0
- Administrative and support0
- Construction0
- Professional, scientific and technical0
- Arts and entertainment0
- Education0
- Other services0
Figures in percent of section companies that are large.
Public administration, households as employers and extraterritorial organizations are left off this chart. Together they hold only 74 registered companies nationwide, with zero classified as large, too few to score a meaningful share.
Large companies by industry section, ranked by share
| Industry section | Companies | Large companies | Share large |
|---|---|---|---|
| Electricity and gas | 7,833 | 191 | 2.44% |
| Manufacturing | 230,396 | 4,718 | 2.05% |
| Financial and insurance | 35,577 | 556 | 1.56% |
| Human health and social work | 17,294 | 178 | 1.03% |
| Water and waste | 4,818 | 49 | 1.02% |
| Wholesale and retail trade | 716,066 | 5,590 | 0.78% |
| Mining and quarrying | 8,231 | 55 | 0.67% |
| Agriculture, forestry and fishing | 19,259 | 128 | 0.66% |
| Transportation and storage | 85,303 | 448 | 0.53% |
| Information and communication | 52,537 | 196 | 0.37% |
| Accommodation and food service | 83,608 | 260 | 0.31% |
| Real estate | 149,618 | 386 | 0.26% |
| Administrative and support | 100,711 | 240 | 0.24% |
| Construction | 283,564 | 562 | 0.20% |
| Professional, scientific and technical | 138,982 | 253 | 0.18% |
| Arts and entertainment | 18,486 | 31 | 0.17% |
| Education | 13,897 | 18 | 0.13% |
| Other services | 20,455 | 16 | 0.08% |
Total companies with a size band, large companies and their share, per section, as of 17 Jul 2026.
Why the large-company share matters
Size classification decides which filing rules, tax treatment and disclosure duties a company faces, so where large firms concentrate tells you something about how a sector is actually built. Electricity and gas and manufacturing both carry heavy fixed costs, from power plants to production lines, and those costs push a larger share of their operators past the revenue and asset lines that define a large company. Construction runs on the opposite model entirely. It is Thailand's second largest section by company count with 283,564 registered firms, yet only 562 of them, 0.20 percent, are large, because most construction work is subcontracted down through small crews and single-project outfits rather than run inside one big builder. A reader who only looks at total company counts in construction would miss how thin its large-firm layer really is. Anyone judging supply chain concentration or credit risk in a heavily subcontracted sector should check the share of large firms, not just the headcount.
Definitions
- Large company
- The top of four DBD size bands, alongside micro, small and medium, assigned using capital, revenue and asset thresholds drawn from Thailand's MSME classification rules.
- Share of large companies
- The count of large companies in a section divided by all companies in that section with an assigned size band, expressed as a percentage.
- Industry section
- One of the 21 top level letters, A through U, in the International Standard Industrial Classification, each grouping many 5 digit industry codes.
- TSIC
- The Thailand Standard Industrial Classification, the 5 digit industry coding system that DBD assigns to every registered company and that rolls up into the 21 lettered sections.
Assumptions
- A company's size band and section come from its most recent filed status in the registry, so a company that never filed a financial statement may lack a size band and is excluded from that section's total.
- Public administration, households as employers and extraterritorial organizations are excluded from the ranked chart and table because each holds fewer than 40 companies, too few for a stable share, though their raw counts are documented in the methodology.
- Size bands reflect a single point in time. A section's share of large companies can shift as individual companies file new statements and cross a threshold.
Methodology
Large-company share is the count of companies coded as large divided by all companies with an assigned size band in a section, computed from Thailand's Department of Business Development registry as of 17 July 2026. Figures are aggregated from 5 digit TSIC industry codes up to their parent 1 letter section, since 5 digit industry names are not published. Size bands, running micro, small, medium and large, follow the registry's own classification. Public administration, households as employers and extraterritorial organizations are reported in the underlying data but dropped from the ranked chart and table because each holds fewer than 40 registered companies, too few for a stable share.
How we verified this
- Electricity and gas: 191 large companies of 7,833 total equals 191 divided by 7833 times 100, or 2.44 percent, the highest of the 21 sections.
- Manufacturing: 4,718 large companies of 230,396 total equals 2.05 percent, the second highest share.
- Construction: 562 large companies of 283,564 total equals 0.20 percent, placing it 14th of the 18 scored sections despite ranking as the second largest section by company count.
- Summed across all 21 sections, large companies total 13,875 of 1,986,709 companies with a size band, a 0.70 percent economy-wide share, matching the registry's published national large-company share of 0.7 percent.
- All 18 scored sections were re-sorted by share of large companies in descending order and the sequence matches the published chart and table.
References
- Department of Business Development. (2026). Registered juristic persons and enterprise size classification. Ministry of Commerce, Thailand. https://www.dbd.go.th/
- Office of Small and Medium Enterprises Promotion. (2020). Ministerial regulation on MSME classification criteria. Ministry of Industry, Thailand. https://en.sme.go.th/en/
Frequently asked questions
Which Thai industry section has the highest share of large companies?
Electricity and gas, where 2.44 percent of registered companies are classified as large, ahead of manufacturing at 2.05 percent.
Why does construction have so few large companies despite being one of the biggest sections?
Construction has 283,564 registered companies, the second most of any section, but only 562 are large, a 0.20 percent share, because most construction work runs through small subcontractors and single project firms rather than large builders.
What share of Thai companies overall are large?
0.70 percent, or 13,875 of the 1,986,709 companies with an assigned size band, as of 17 July 2026.
How is a company classified as large in Thailand?
The DBD registry assigns each filed company to a micro, small, medium or large size band using capital, revenue and asset thresholds set under Thailand's MSME classification rules.
Cite this page
Chatpong L. (2026). Share of Large Companies by Industry Section in Thailand 2026. Max Data Insights. https://maxdatathailand.com/insights/share-of-large-companies-within-each-thai-industry-section-2026
Data & corrections
Download the data (CSV)Spot something off, or want to ask about the data? Email insights@maxsolutions.co.th. We publish corrections.
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.