Insurance Leads Thailand's Fastest-Shrinking Industries, 2026
In short
Non-life insurance carries the steepest three year revenue decline among Thailand's sizable, named industry codes, down 52.2 percent as of 17 Jul 2026. Life insurance follows at 42.2 percent and discount stores and hypermarkets at 36.6 percent, each more than double the fourth place decline. Both insurance codes still post strong net margins, 41.1 percent and 57.3 percent, and real premiums grew through 2024 and into 2025 by outside industry reporting. The registry's insurance figures carry a partial filing flag, pointing to late filings, not a shrinking market. The hypermarket decline looks real.
Which industry codes are shrinking fastest by revenue?
Non-life insurance posts the steepest three year revenue decline of any sizable, named Thai industry code, down 52.2 percent as of 17 Jul 2026 (DBD, 2026). Life insurance ranks second, down 42.2 percent. Discount stores and hypermarkets rank third, down 36.6 percent. All three carry at least ten large companies among their filers, so the ranking is not being driven by one or two outlier firms. The gap after third place is wide. Fourth place, sea and coastal freight water transport, sits at a 14.5 percent decline, less than half the size of the hypermarket drop. Insurance and discount retail are not shrinking like the rest of the economy. They sit in a category of their own.
Three year revenue CAGR, ten steepest named industry codes
- 65120, non-life insurance-52
- 65110, life insurance-42
- 47112, discount stores and hypermarkets-37
- 50121, sea and coastal freight transport-14
- 46201, rice and grain wholesale-14
- 20113, basic inorganic chemicals-13
- 13113, synthetic fibre spinning-12
- 24109, other basic iron and steel-11
- 52292, freight forwarding and customs agents-11
- 77309, machinery and equipment leasing-11
Figures in percent, 3 year CAGR.
Insurance and hypermarket retail sit far below the rest of the field, more than double the fourth ranked decline.
Ten industry codes with the steepest three year revenue decline
| TSIC code | Industry | Section | 3 year CAGR | Companies | Large companies | Net margin |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 65120 | Non-life insurance | K | -52.2% | 446 | 49 | 41.1% |
| 65110 | Life insurance | K | -42.2% | 355 | 34 | 57.3% |
| 47112 | Discount stores, supercenters and hypermarkets | G | -36.6% | 417 | 18 | 0.9% |
| 50121 | Sea and coastal freight water transport | H | -14.5% | 681 | 17 | 17.1% |
| 46201 | Wholesale of rice in the husk and other grains | G | -14.3% | 6,279 | 46 | 0.1% |
| 20113 | Manufacture of other basic inorganic chemicals | C | -13.0% | 503 | 61 | -1.9% |
| 13113 | Spinning of synthetic textile fibres | C | -11.6% | 334 | 13 | 2.8% |
| 24109 | Manufacture of other basic iron and steel | C | -11.2% | 1,969 | 114 | 0.6% |
| 52292 | Freight forwarding and customs agent activities | H | -11.1% | 5,701 | 87 | 3.1% |
| 77309 | Renting and leasing of other machinery and equipment | N | -11.1% | 1,474 | 10 | 2.8% |
Limited to five digit TSIC codes with an official name and at least ten large companies among their filers, as of 17 Jul 2026.
Why is insurance leading the retreat?
The registry itself flags a reason for caution. Both insurance codes carry a partial filing flag in Max Data's tables, marking a code whose latest year filings look incomplete against its own recent filing history, at the point this snapshot was taken. Non-life insurance's aggregate revenue in that year was 25.3 billion baht, far below the 231.6 billion baht reported three years earlier. Independent industry reporting points the opposite way. Thailand's non-life insurers wrote 286.5 billion baht of direct premium in 2024, up 0.5 percent from the year before, per actuarial reporting on the sector (Milliman, 2025a). Premiums grew a further 3 percent in the first half of 2025 (Milliman, 2025b). Both insurance codes still post strong net margins on the revenue that has been filed, 41.1 percent for non-life and 57.3 percent for life, nowhere near the profile of a business in genuine retreat. The registry decline looks less like insurers losing customers and more like large insurers filing their statements later than this July 2026 snapshot could capture. Discount stores and hypermarkets carry no such flag. Their company count fell from 206 to 193 in the latest year alone, a real 6.3 percent drop, alongside the revenue decline, consistent with genuine consolidation in large format retail rather than a filing gap.
Why this matters
A registry this granular can mislead as easily as it can inform. Naming five digit codes lets a reader see that an industry which looks like it collapsed by half is actually an insurance sector whose largest filers have not yet lodged their latest accounts. Anyone reading a single year of Thai insurance revenue without checking the filing pattern first would draw the wrong conclusion about the sector's health. The hypermarket story earns more trust because it carries no such flag. Its decline shows up in both revenue and company count together, a pattern that matches what large format retail has looked like elsewhere in Southeast Asia as shoppers shift toward convenience stores and online channels. A steep three year CAGR is the start of a question about an industry, not the answer to one.
Definitions
- TSIC code
- Thailand Standard Industrial Classification code, a five digit number identifying a company's specific line of business within one of 21 broader lettered industry sections.
- Three year CAGR
- Compound annual growth rate, the constant yearly growth rate that would take a starting value to an ending value over three years. Calculated as the ending revenue divided by the starting revenue, raised to the power of one third, minus one.
- Net margin
- Net profit as a share of revenue for all companies in a code that filed a financial statement in the latest year.
- Large company
- The top of DBD's four size bands, micro, small, medium and large, assigned from a company's reported revenue, assets and employees together.
- Partial filing flag
- A marker in Max Data's underlying table for a TSIC code whose latest statement year filings look incomplete against its own recent filing history, at the time the data was captured.
- Aggregate
- A total summed across every company in a group, here every company filing under one TSIC code in one statement year, rather than an average of individual company figures.
Assumptions
- The three year CAGR compares only two endpoints, the latest reported year and the year three periods before it, so a single unusual year can move the published rate.
- This ranking only includes codes with at least ten large companies among their filers, so it may exclude smaller industries with a genuine decline but a thinner base of large filers.
- Non-life and life insurance carry a partial filing flag, meaning their true 2025 revenue is very likely higher than what had been filed and captured in this snapshot.
- External premium figures cited for context come from actuarial industry reporting, not the DBD registry, and cover the whole non-life insurance market rather than the exact scope of TSIC code 65120 alone.
Methodology
Three year revenue CAGR is the compound annual growth rate between the latest reported statement year, 2025, and the year three periods earlier, 2022, using aggregate revenue for every company classified under a five digit TSIC code in the DBD registry as of 17 July 2026. The ranking is limited to codes with at least ten large companies among their filers, so a handful of outlier filers cannot produce an extreme rate. Two industry codes, non-life and life insurance, carry a partial filing flag in the underlying table, marking a code whose latest year filings look incomplete against its own recent filing history at the time of this snapshot. That flag is disclosed wherever those two codes appear in this analysis. Figures are aggregate totals across all filers in a code, not an average of each company's own growth rate.
How we verified this
- Non-life insurance's three year CAGR was recomputed from the raw revenue field. Dividing the 2025 aggregate revenue of 25,272,938,764.74 baht by the 2022 aggregate revenue of 231,595,029,548.96 baht gives a ratio of 0.1091. Raising that ratio to the power of one third and subtracting one gives negative 52.2 percent, matching the table's published cagr_3y.
- Life insurance's three year CAGR was recomputed the same way. Dividing 103,464,756,676.35 baht by 536,510,122,026.11 baht gives a ratio of 0.1929. Raising that ratio to the power of one third and subtracting one gives negative 42.2 percent, matching the published cagr_3y.
- Discount stores and hypermarkets recompute the same way. Dividing 142,440,645,151.86 baht by 558,349,956,587.70 baht gives a ratio of 0.2551. Raising that ratio to the power of one third and subtracting one gives negative 36.6 percent, matching the published cagr_3y.
- Combined life and non-life insurance revenue fell from 768,105,151,575.07 baht in 2022, the two codes summed, to 128,737,695,441.09 baht in 2025, a raw decline of 83.2 percent, computed independently of the published per code growth rates.
- Discount store and hypermarket company count fell from 206 to 193 between the prior and latest filed year, a drop of 6.3 percent, recomputed directly from the companies_prev and companies_latest fields.
- Section K, financial and insurance, reported an aggregate net margin of 25.4 percent from 839,229,845,430.60 baht of net profit over 3,303,794,936,231.34 baht of revenue, confirming both named insurance codes sit well above the section average margin.
References
- Department of Business Development. (2026). Registered juristic persons and financial statement aggregates. Ministry of Commerce, Thailand. https://www.dbd.go.th/
- Milliman. (2025a). Thailand in focus: What's new in non-life, March 2025. https://www.milliman.com/en/insight/thailand-non-life-insurance-march-2025
- Milliman. (2025b). Thailand in focus: What's new in non-life, September 2025. https://www.milliman.com/en/insight/thailand-non-life-insurance-september-2025
Frequently asked questions
Which Thai industry code has the steepest revenue decline?
Non-life insurance, TSIC code 65120, with a 52.2 percent three year revenue CAGR through the most recent statement year, ahead of life insurance at 42.2 percent and discount stores and hypermarkets at 36.6 percent.
Is Thai insurance actually shrinking?
Not by the evidence outside the registry. Independent actuarial reporting shows Thai non-life insurers wrote 286.5 billion baht of direct premium in 2024, up 0.5 percent from 2023, then grew premiums a further 3 percent in the first half of 2025. The registry's steep decline lines up with a partial filing flag on both insurance codes, pointing to late filings by large insurers rather than a shrinking market.
Why do discount stores and hypermarkets show a real decline?
That code carries no partial filing flag. Its company count fell from 206 to 193 in the latest year alone alongside the revenue drop, a pattern consistent with consolidation in large format retail rather than a data gap.
What counts as a large company in this ranking?
Large is the top of DBD's four size bands, assigned from a company's reported revenue, assets and employees together. This ranking only includes industry codes with at least ten large companies among their filers, so a handful of outlier filers cannot produce an extreme rate.
Cite this page
Chatpong L. (2026). Insurance Leads Thailand's Fastest-Shrinking Industries, 2026. Max Data Insights. https://maxdatathailand.com/insights/shrinking-named-thai-industry-codes-by-revenue-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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