138 Thai Industry Codes Flipped From Profit to Loss in 2020
In short
138 five-digit Thai industry codes swung from profit in 2019 to a loss in 2020, out of 974 codes with filed data in both years. Only 57 moved the opposite way, from a loss into profit, so negative flips outnumber positive ones by more than two to one. Thailand's revenue-weighted net margin still climbed over the same stretch, from 2.58 percent to 3.61 percent. One real estate code alone swung 121.8 billion baht into the black, bigger than the combined damage of the five worst loss flips. A handful of large recoveries covered for a broader spread of small breakdowns.
How many industry codes swung from profit to loss in 2020?
138 five digit TSIC industry codes reported an aggregate profit in 2019 and an aggregate loss in 2020, drawn from the 974 codes with filed financial data in both years (DBD, 2026). That is 14.17 percent of those 974 codes. Only 57 codes moved the other direction, from a loss in 2019 into a profit in 2020, just 5.85 percent of the group. Divide 138 by 57 and codes turning negative outnumber codes turning positive by 2.42 to one. A further 598 codes stayed profitable in both years and 181 stayed in loss in both years. Yet across the same twelve months, Thailand's revenue weighted net margin rose from 2.58 percent to 3.61 percent, a gain of 1.03 percentage points. The count of struggling codes went up. The national margin went up too. Those two facts sit side by side in the same registry.
The biggest net profit swings among flipped codes, 2019 to 2020
- 68104, real estate, turned to profit122
- 47112, wholesale and retail trade-31
- 73101, professional services-11
- 56101, restaurants-10
- 68103, real estate-8
- 42909, construction-7
- 79120, tour operators-5
- 28120, manufacturing-5
- 52239, transportation and storage-5
- 59140, information and communication-3
- 26303, manufacturing, turned to profit3
- 26309, manufacturing, turned to profit3
Figures in billion baht, net profit in 2020 minus net profit in 2019.
One real estate code recovered more money than the eight worst profit to loss flips lost combined. Red losses are many and small. The green recovery is single and huge.
Flipped codes by industry section
| Industry section | Codes flipped to loss | Codes flipped to profit | Net swing toward loss |
|---|---|---|---|
| Manufacturing | 34 | 24 | 10 |
| Wholesale and retail trade | 20 | 6 | 14 |
| Agriculture, forestry and fishing | 13 | 7 | 6 |
| Administrative and support | 10 | 3 | 7 |
| Information and communication | 10 | 5 | 5 |
| Arts and entertainment | 8 | 1 | 7 |
| Transportation and storage | 7 | 0 | 7 |
| Human health and social work | 6 | 0 | 6 |
| Accommodation and food service | 6 | 0 | 6 |
| Other services | 6 | 2 | 4 |
| Education | 4 | 0 | 4 |
| Construction | 4 | 0 | 4 |
| Professional, scientific and technical | 3 | 1 | 2 |
| Mining and quarrying | 2 | 1 | 1 |
| Financial and insurance | 2 | 2 | 0 |
| Real estate | 1 | 1 | 0 |
| Electricity and gas | 1 | 1 | 0 |
| Water supply and waste management | 1 | 3 | -2 |
Five digit TSIC codes that flipped from profit to loss or from loss to profit between statement year 2019 and statement year 2020, grouped by parent section, as of 14 Aug 2026.
Why the trend line hides the spread
A national average is a sum, and a sum can look calm while its parts move in opposite directions. That is exactly what happened here. Add up the profit and loss of the 138 codes that flipped to loss and the 57 that flipped to profit, 195 codes in total, and their combined result went from a 64.97 billion baht loss in 2019 to a 50.62 billion baht loss in 2020, an improvement of 14.35 billion baht. Almost all of that improvement traces back to one code. Code 68104, a real estate activity code, swung from a 115.64 billion baht loss in 2019 to a 6.21 billion baht profit in 2020, a turnaround of 121.85 billion baht on its own. That single code covers 84.27 percent of the entire flip to profit group's swing and, by itself, outweighs the combined 65.91 billion baht lost by the five worst codes that flipped the other way. Manufacturing sits at the center of the count story rather than the money story. It supplies 34 of the 138 loss flips and 24 of the 57 profit flips, more codes than any other section in both directions, evidence that manufacturing sub industries were volatile rather than uniformly weak. Wholesale and retail trade shows the cleanest one way pressure, 20 codes flipping to loss against just 6 flipping to profit. Only one section ran the other way on balance. Water supply and waste management had three codes turn profitable against a single code that turned to loss, the lone section where 2020 clearly helped more codes than it hurt. The COVID shock of 2020 knocked out world GDP growth and cut Thailand's own growth sharply that year, and the codes closest to travel and gatherings show it plainly (World Bank, 2020). Tour operator code 79120 fell from a thin 0.79 percent margin to negative 20.52 percent, exactly the kind of code a travel shutdown would hit first. Restaurant code 56101, which alone carries over eleven thousand companies, fell from a thin 0.31 percent margin into a 4.89 percent loss. Reading only the national margin would miss every one of these stories.
Definitions
- Five digit TSIC code
- The most granular level of Thailand's Standard Industrial Classification, sitting beneath the 21 broad lettered sections. Public names for each five digit code are not carried in this database, only the code, its parent section and its financial aggregates.
- Flipped to loss
- A code whose aggregate net profit across all filing companies was positive in statement year 2019 and negative in statement year 2020.
- Flipped to profit
- A code whose aggregate net profit across all filing companies was negative in statement year 2019 and positive in statement year 2020, the mirror of flipped to loss.
- Net margin
- Aggregate net profit as a share of aggregate revenue for a given group of companies and year. A margin of one percent means one satang of profit was kept for every baht of revenue.
- Revenue weighted national margin
- National net profit divided by national revenue across every filing company, so large companies influence the figure in proportion to their revenue rather than each company counting equally.
- Buddhist calendar statement year
- Thailand's official calendar, which runs 543 years ahead of the Gregorian calendar. Statement year 2562 is 2019 and statement year 2563 is 2020 on the Gregorian calendar.
- Net profit swing
- The change in a code's aggregate net profit from one statement year to the next, calculated as the later year's net profit minus the earlier year's net profit.
Assumptions
- A code is judged flipped or not purely by the sign of its aggregate net profit summed across every company filing under it, not by counting how many individual companies within the code changed sign.
- Only the 974 codes present in both statement year 2562 and statement year 2563 are compared. Three codes with 2019 data but no matching 2020 row, and four codes with 2020 data but no matching 2019 row, are excluded from the flip counts.
- The database carries no activity description for any five digit code, so most codes in the chart and table are identified only by code number and parent section. Two codes, 56101 as restaurants and 79120 as tour operator activities, are named directly because those two labels are confirmed against Thailand's published TSIC 2009 classification list, not because the database itself supplied them.
- This dataset's computed_at timestamp, 14 August 2026, is newer than the 7 July 2026 anchor referenced in earlier routine notes, so all figures here use the live 14 August 2026 snapshot rather than the older anchor.
- National net margin figures reflect all filing companies in each statement year, not only the subset of companies whose five digit code is present in both years.
Methodology
A five digit TSIC code counts as flipped to loss when its aggregate net profit, the sum of net profit across all companies filing under that code, was greater than zero in statement year 2562, which is 2019 on the Gregorian calendar, and less than zero in statement year 2563, which is 2020. Flipped to profit is the mirror case. The comparison is restricted to the 974 codes that carried a row in both statement years, out of 977 codes present in 2019 and 978 present in 2020, so a handful of codes with data in only one year are excluded from the flip counts. National net margin is aggregate net profit divided by aggregate revenue across all filing companies for that statement year, not an average of individual company margins. All figures come from Department of Business Development registry aggregates by five digit industry code and statement year, snapshotted 14 August 2026. Five digit code descriptions are not carried in this dataset. Most codes in the chart and table are labeled only by code number and parent section, confirmed against the registry. Two codes, restaurants for 56101 and tour operator activities for 79120, are named directly because those specific labels are confirmed against Thailand's published TSIC 2009 classification list.
How we verified this
- Joined statement year 2562 and 2563 aggregates on tsic_code, 974 codes matched in both years. Counted net_profit_2562 greater than zero and net_profit_2563 less than zero: 138 codes. 138 divided by 974 equals 14.17 percent.
- Counted net_profit_2562 less than zero and net_profit_2563 greater than zero: 57 codes. 57 divided by 974 equals 5.85 percent. 138 divided by 57 equals 2.42.
- Counted the remaining two groups: 598 codes stayed profitable both years, 61.40 percent of 974, and 181 codes stayed in loss both years, 18.58 percent of 974. 138 plus 57 plus 598 plus 181 equals 974, confirming no code was miscounted.
- Recomputed national net margin directly from market_year_insight: 1,239,490,962,185.96 divided by 48,115,967,905,411.14 equals 2.576 percent for 2019, and 1,586,948,698,292.77 divided by 43,993,407,367,025.73 equals 3.607 percent for 2020, a rise of 1.031 percentage points, matching the table's stored net_margin field for both years.
- Summed net profit across the 138 loss flip codes and the 57 profit flip codes separately: loss flip group moved from plus 59.77 billion baht to negative 70.47 billion baht, profit flip group moved from negative 124.73 billion baht to plus 19.86 billion baht. Combined across all 195 flipped codes, 2019 total is negative 64.97 billion baht and 2020 total is negative 50.62 billion baht, an improvement of 14.35 billion baht.
- Isolated code 68104: net profit moved from negative 115,635,832,055.71 baht to plus 6,213,144,700.30 baht, a swing of 121,848,976,756.01 baht. Divided by the profit flip group's total swing of 144,591,699,309.20 baht, that one code accounts for 84.27 percent of the group's total turnaround.
- Summed the five largest single code swings toward loss, codes 47112, 73101, 56101, 68103 and 42909: negative 31.04 billion, negative 10.77 billion, negative 9.65 billion, negative 7.88 billion and negative 6.56 billion baht, totaling negative 65.91 billion baht, smaller in size than code 68104's single 121.85 billion baht recovery.
- Tallied section codes across the 138 loss flip codes and 57 profit flip codes by joining to each code's parent section: manufacturing carries 34 of 138 loss flips, 24.64 percent, and 24 of 57 profit flips, 42.11 percent, the largest share of both groups.
- Confirmed water supply and waste management is the only section with more profit flips than loss flips, 3 against 1, by scanning the full per section tally for any row where the profit flip count exceeds the loss flip count.
References
- Department of Business Development. (2026). Registered juristic persons and financial statement aggregates by industry classification. Ministry of Commerce, Thailand. https://www.dbd.go.th/
- World Bank. (2020). Thailand economic monitor, June 2020: Thailand in the time of COVID-19. World Bank Group. https://www.worldbank.org/en/country/thailand/publication/thailand-economic-monitor-june-2020-thailand-in-the-time-of-covid-19
Frequently asked questions
How many Thai industry codes flipped from profit to loss in 2020?
138 five digit TSIC codes reported an aggregate profit in 2019 and an aggregate loss in 2020, out of 974 codes with data in both years, 14.17 percent of the group.
How many codes flipped the other way, from loss to profit?
57 codes, 5.85 percent of the 974 codes with data in both years. Codes flipping to loss outnumbered codes flipping to profit by 2.42 to one.
If more codes turned to loss, why did the national profit margin improve?
Because national margin is weighted by baht, not by code count. Thailand's revenue weighted net margin rose from 2.58 percent in 2019 to 3.61 percent in 2020 mainly because one real estate code, 68104, swung 121.8 billion baht from loss to profit, more than covering the combined loss from the worst profit to loss flips.
Which industries had the most codes flip to loss?
Manufacturing led with 34 codes flipping to loss, followed by wholesale and retail trade with 20 and agriculture, forestry and fishing with 13. Manufacturing also led profit flips, with 24, showing it moved in both directions rather than sliding uniformly.
Cite this page
Chatpong L. (2026). 138 Thai Industry Codes Flipped From Profit to Loss in 2020. Max Data Insights. https://maxdatathailand.com/insights/thai-industry-codes-that-flipped-to-loss-in-2020-2026
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.