Songkhla vs Phuket 2026: Fewer Firms, 62.5% More Revenue
In short
Songkhla runs 24,014 fewer registered companies than Phuket. Its firms still generate 62.5 percent more total revenue. Songkhla counts 28,543 registered companies. Phuket counts 52,557. Songkhla's total revenue reaches 657.2 billion baht. Phuket's total revenue reaches 404.4 billion baht. The average Songkhla company earns 23.0 million baht a year. A typical Phuket company earns 7.7 million baht, less than a third as much. Phuket runs on volume, built from thousands of small tourism operators. Songkhla runs on a smaller set of far larger industrial and trading firms.
Why does Songkhla out earn Phuket with 24,000 fewer companies?
Songkhla holds 28,543 registered companies as of 17 July 2026, according to the DBD registry (DBD, 2026). Phuket holds 52,557 registered companies. That is a gap of 24,014 companies in Phuket's favor. Revenue runs the opposite direction. Songkhla's registered firms report 657.2 billion baht in combined revenue. Phuket's firms report 404.4 billion baht. That is 62.5 percent less than Songkhla generates. The difference sits in the size of the average firm, not the number of them. A typical Songkhla company turns over 23.0 million baht a year. A typical Phuket company turns over 7.7 million baht, less than a third as much. Songkhla is anchored by Hat Yai, a trading and logistics hub near the Malaysian border, with rubber processing plants and energy infrastructure that book revenue at industrial scale. Phuket's economy is built on tourism, where thousands of small hotels, restaurants and tour operators each report modest turnover.
Average revenue per registered company
- Songkhla23
- Phuket8
Figures in million baht per company.
Songkhla's average firm reports close to three times the revenue of Phuket's average firm.
Songkhla and Phuket side by side
| Metric | Songkhla | Phuket |
|---|---|---|
| Registered companies | 28,543 | 52,557 |
| Total revenue | 657.2 billion baht | 404.4 billion baht |
| Average revenue per company | 23.0 million baht | 7.7 million baht |
| National rank by company count | 12th | 7th |
| National rank by total revenue | 11th | 17th |
| Share of national revenue | 0.82% | 0.51% |
Company counts, revenue and national rank, as of 17 Jul 2026.
Why this matters
Company counts make a poor proxy for economic weight. Phuket ranks 7th nationally by number of registered companies. It falls to 17th nationally by total revenue. That is a drop of ten places. Songkhla shows the opposite pattern. It ranks 12th nationally by company count. It ranks 11th nationally by total revenue. That is one place higher than its company count rank. That flip matters for anyone reading raw registry counts as a stand in for market size. A tourism economy built on thousands of small operators can post a large headline count of companies while producing comparatively modest revenue. An industrial and trading hub with a fraction of the firms can still out earn it, baht for baht. A lender or investor sizing a southern Thai market from company counts alone would badly misjudge which province carries more economic weight.
Definitions
- Registered company
- A juristic person recorded in the DBD registry, regardless of whether it currently files financial statements or reports any revenue.
- Total revenue
- The sum of reported revenue across all companies registered in a province that have filed a financial statement, in baht.
- Average revenue per company
- A province's total reported revenue divided by its total registered company count. This is a province wide average, not the revenue of a typical individual firm.
- National rank
- A province's position when all 77 provinces, including Bangkok, are sorted from highest to lowest on a given measure such as company count or total revenue.
Assumptions
- Average revenue per company is a province wide ratio and can be pulled upward by a small number of very large firms, so it does not describe a typical single business.
- Total revenue includes only companies that have filed a financial statement, so provinces with lower filing rates could understate their true economic activity.
- Company counts include dormant and inactive registrations alongside active ones, so raw counts overstate the number of operating businesses in both provinces.
Methodology
Figures are drawn from the DBD registered company database as of 17 July 2026, using aggregate province level counts and reported revenue for all registered companies in Songkhla and Phuket. Total revenue is the sum of reported revenue across all companies with a filed financial statement in each province. Average revenue per company divides total provincial revenue by the total registered company count for that province. National ranks compare Songkhla and Phuket against all 76 provinces plus Bangkok on the same two measures.
How we verified this
- Company count gap recomputed as 52,557 minus 28,543 equals 24,014, matching the stated 24,000 fewer companies in Songkhla.
- Revenue advantage recomputed as (657,219,959,616.23 minus 404,446,017,570.47) divided by 404,446,017,570.47 equals 0.625, or 62.5 percent, the figure used throughout the page.
- Average revenue per company recomputed as total revenue divided by entity count for each province: 657,219,959,616.23 divided by 28,543 equals 23,025,609 baht for Songkhla, and 404,446,017,570.47 divided by 52,557 equals 7,695,379 baht for Phuket, a ratio of 2.99.
- National ranks recomputed by sorting all 77 province rows independently by entity_count and by total_revenue: Songkhla ranks 12th by count and 11th by revenue, Phuket ranks 7th by count and 17th by revenue.
- Revenue share of the national total recomputed as province revenue divided by the sum of all province revenue rows: Songkhla equals 0.82 percent and Phuket equals 0.51 percent.
References
- Department of Business Development. (2026). Registered juristic persons and financial statement aggregates by province. Ministry of Commerce, Thailand. https://www.dbd.go.th/
- Office of the National Economic and Social Development Council. (2024). Gross Provincial Product report. Office of the Prime Minister, Thailand. https://www.nesdc.go.th/
Frequently asked questions
Does Songkhla really have fewer companies than Phuket?
Yes. Songkhla has 28,543 registered companies. Phuket has 52,557. That is a gap of 24,014 companies, as of 17 July 2026.
Why does Songkhla generate more total revenue than Phuket?
Songkhla's average registered company reports 23.0 million baht in revenue. A typical Phuket company reports 7.7 million baht, less than a third as much. Fewer, larger firms in trading, rubber processing and energy around Hat Yai outweigh a much larger population of small tourism businesses in Phuket.
How much more revenue does Songkhla generate than Phuket?
Songkhla's registered companies report 657.2 billion baht in combined revenue. Phuket's registered companies report 404.4 billion baht. Songkhla generates 62.5 percent more.
Where do Songkhla and Phuket rank nationally?
Songkhla ranks 12th among Thailand's provinces by company count. It ranks 11th by total revenue. Phuket ranks 7th by company count. It drops to 17th by total revenue.
Cite this page
Chatpong L. (2026). Songkhla vs Phuket 2026: Fewer Firms, 62.5% More Revenue. Max Data Insights. https://maxdatathailand.com/insights/songkhla-vs-phuket-business-comparison-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.