Songkhla vs Surat Thani 2026: Fewer Firms, 59% More Revenue
In short
Songkhla generates 59.4 percent more revenue than Surat Thani despite running 11,618 fewer registered companies. Surat Thani counts 40,161 registered companies. Songkhla counts 28,543. Surat Thani's total revenue reaches 412.3 billion baht. Songkhla's total revenue reaches 657.2 billion baht. The average Songkhla company earns 23.0 million baht a year. A typical Surat Thani company earns 10.3 million baht, less than half as much. Surat Thani runs on tourism and smallholder agriculture. Songkhla runs on a smaller set of far larger industrial and trading firms anchored around Hat Yai.
Does Surat Thani out earn Songkhla with more companies on the books?
Surat Thani holds 40,161 registered companies as of 17 July 2026, according to the DBD registry (DBD, 2026). Songkhla holds 28,543, a gap of 11,618 companies in Surat Thani's favor. Revenue runs the opposite direction. Surat Thani's registered firms report 412.3 billion baht in combined revenue. Songkhla's firms report 657.2 billion baht, 59.4 percent more than Surat Thani generates despite the smaller register. 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 Surat Thani company turns over 10.3 million baht, less than half as much. Surat Thani's economy leans on tourism around Koh Samui and Koh Phangan plus a wide base of rubber and palm oil smallholders, where thousands of modest operators each book limited turnover. Songkhla is anchored by Hat Yai, a trading and logistics hub near the Malaysian border, with rubber processing plants and industrial estates that book revenue at a far larger scale.
Average revenue per registered company
- Surat Thani10
- Songkhla23
Figures in million baht per company.
Songkhla's average firm reports more than double the revenue of Surat Thani's average firm.
Surat Thani and Songkhla side by side
| Metric | Surat Thani | Songkhla |
|---|---|---|
| Registered companies | 40,161 | 28,543 |
| Total revenue | 412.3 billion baht | 657.2 billion baht |
| Average revenue per company | 10.3 million baht | 23.0 million baht |
| National rank by company count | 8th | 12th |
| National rank by total revenue | 16th | 11th |
| Share of national revenue | 0.52% | 0.82% |
Company counts, revenue and national rank, as of 17 Jul 2026.
Why this matters
Company counts make a poor proxy for economic weight, and this pair proves it cleanly. Surat Thani ranks 8th nationally by number of registered companies. It falls to 16th nationally by total revenue, a drop of eight places. Songkhla shows the opposite pattern. It ranks 12th nationally by company count. It climbs to 11th nationally by total revenue, one place higher than its company count rank. A province with 11,618 fewer registered companies still out earns its larger neighbor by 244.9 billion baht combined. A lender or investor sizing a southern Thai market from registration counts alone would rank Surat Thani ahead of Songkhla and get the order backward. A tourism and smallholder economy can post a large headline count of companies while producing comparatively modest revenue. An industrial trading hub with a fraction of the firms can still earn more, baht for baht. The register counts businesses. It does not count what they are worth.
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 named 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.
- National ranks exclude two rows in the source table with no province name attached, so ranks reflect ordering among the 77 named 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 Surat Thani and Songkhla. 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 Surat Thani and Songkhla against all 77 named provinces on the same two measures. Companies that never filed a financial statement contribute to the company count but not to the revenue total.
How we verified this
- Company count gap recomputed as 40,161 minus 28,543 equals 11,618, matching the stated gap in Surat Thani's favor.
- Revenue advantage recomputed as 657,219,959,616.23 minus 412,316,401,146.53, divided by 412,316,401,146.53, equals 0.594, or 59.4 percent, the figure used throughout the page.
- Average revenue per company recomputed as total revenue divided by entity count for each province: 412,316,401,146.53 divided by 40,161 equals 10,266,587 baht for Surat Thani, and 657,219,959,616.23 divided by 28,543 equals 23,025,609 baht for Songkhla, a ratio of 2.24.
- National ranks recomputed by sorting all 77 named province rows independently by entity_count and by total_revenue, excluding two rows with no province name attached: Surat Thani ranks 8th by count and 16th by revenue, Songkhla ranks 12th by count and 11th by revenue.
- Revenue share of the national total recomputed as province revenue divided by the sum of all 77 named province revenue rows, 80,057,095,437,018.40 baht: Surat Thani equals 0.52 percent and Songkhla equals 0.82 percent.
- Combined revenue gap recomputed as 657,219,959,616.23 minus 412,316,401,146.53 equals 244,903,558,469.70 baht, about 244.9 billion baht, matching the figure used in the closing section.
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 Regional and Provincial Product report. Office of the Prime Minister, Thailand. https://www.nesdc.go.th/en/info/gross-regional-and-provincial-product-gpp/
Frequently asked questions
Does Surat Thani really have more registered companies than Songkhla?
Yes. Surat Thani has 40,161 registered companies. Songkhla has 28,543. That is a gap of 11,618 companies, as of 17 July 2026.
Why does Songkhla earn more revenue than Surat Thani despite fewer companies?
Songkhla's average registered company reports 23.0 million baht in revenue. A typical Surat Thani company reports 10.3 million baht, less than half as much. A smaller set of larger trading, rubber processing and industrial firms around Hat Yai outweighs a much larger population of small tourism and agricultural businesses in Surat Thani.
How much more revenue does Songkhla generate than Surat Thani?
Songkhla's registered companies report 657.2 billion baht in combined revenue. Surat Thani's registered companies report 412.3 billion baht. Songkhla generates 59.4 percent more, a difference of about 244.9 billion baht.
Where do Surat Thani and Songkhla rank nationally?
Surat Thani ranks 8th among Thailand's provinces by company count. It falls to 16th by total revenue. Songkhla ranks 12th by company count and climbs to 11th by total revenue.
Cite this page
Chatpong L. (2026). Songkhla vs Surat Thani 2026: Fewer Firms, 59% More Revenue. Max Data Insights. https://maxdatathailand.com/insights/surat-thani-vs-songkhla-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.