Thai Industries That Got More Asset Heavy, 2007 to 2025
In short
Education's asset-to-revenue ratio rocketed from 2.5x to 20.8x between 2007 and 2025, the steepest capital intensity climb of any Thai industry section. Financial and insurance climbed too, from 8.0x to 15.8x. That pace still trails education by more than four times over. Professional, scientific and technical services and administrative and support both roughly doubled their ratios over the same 18 years. Four sections became less asset heavy instead. Arts and entertainment led that group, falling from 3.3x to 2.1x.
Which industries needed the most assets to earn each baht of revenue?
Education answers that question decisively (DBD, 2026). Its aggregate asset-to-revenue ratio was 2.5x in the 2007 statement year and reached 20.8x by 2025. That is an eightfold jump, the steepest of any section. Financial and insurance ranked second, rising from 8.0x to 15.8x. Its two times multiple still trails education by a wide margin. Professional, scientific and technical services nearly doubled, moving from 1.3x to 2.6x. Administrative and support services followed a similar path, from 1.3x to 2.4x. Real estate stayed the single most asset-heavy sector outside finance and education throughout, ending 2025 at 7.4x. Fourteen of the 18 sections with usable data in both years grew more asset intensive. The remaining four ran the other direction.
Growth in the asset-to-revenue ratio, 2007 to 2025
- Education8
- Financial and insurance2
- Professional, scientific and technical2
- Administrative and support2
- Real estate2
- Mining and quarrying2
- Electricity and gas2
- Agriculture, forestry and fishing1
- Manufacturing1
- Other services1
- Construction1
- Information and communication1
- Human health and social work1
- Transportation and storage1
- Accommodation and food service1
- Water and waste1
- Wholesale and retail trade1
- Arts and entertainment1
Figures in multiple of the 2007 ratio.
A value of 2.0 means the section held twice as many baht of assets per baht of revenue in 2025 as it did in 2007. Values below 1.0 mean the section became leaner, not heavier.
Asset-to-revenue ratio by industry section, 2007 versus 2025
| Industry section | 2007 ratio | 2025 ratio | Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| Education | 2.5x | 20.8x | 8.3x |
| Financial and insurance | 8.0x | 15.8x | 2.0x |
| Professional, scientific and technical | 1.3x | 2.6x | 1.9x |
| Administrative and support | 1.3x | 2.4x | 1.8x |
| Real estate | 4.3x | 7.4x | 1.7x |
| Mining and quarrying | 1.7x | 2.7x | 1.6x |
| Electricity and gas | 2.1x | 3.2x | 1.5x |
| Agriculture, forestry and fishing | 1.0x | 1.5x | 1.5x |
| Manufacturing | 0.7x | 1.0x | 1.5x |
| Other services | 1.1x | 1.5x | 1.4x |
| Construction | 0.9x | 1.2x | 1.4x |
| Information and communication | 1.9x | 2.3x | 1.2x |
| Human health and social work | 1.4x | 1.7x | 1.2x |
| Transportation and storage | 1.4x | 1.5x | 1.0x |
| Accommodation and food service | 2.8x | 2.5x | 0.9x |
| Water and waste | 2.3x | 1.9x | 0.8x |
| Wholesale and retail trade | 0.4x | 0.4x | 0.8x |
| Arts and entertainment | 3.3x | 2.1x | 0.6x |
Aggregate total assets divided by aggregate total revenue, statement year 2550, which is 2007, versus 2568, which is 2025, as of 17 Jul 2026.
Reading the education number with care
Education's asset base did not climb in a straight line. It grew steadily from 32 billion baht in 2007 to 77 billion baht by the 2560 statement year. Assets then jumped to 1.08 trillion baht in the very next statement year, 2561. That single-year jump lines up with the wider registry coverage expansion known to have affected the 2018 statement year across the DBD data. Assets have barely moved since, sitting at 1.12 trillion baht in 2025. Revenue, meanwhile, kept growing from 34 billion baht to 54 billion baht over the same stretch. The 20.8x figure is real and it is what the section reported. Most of the climb happened in one filing year rather than across eighteen years of gradual investment. Financial and insurance shows no comparable jump. Its assets rose from 10.3 trillion baht to 42.7 trillion baht across the same 18 statement years. Most annual moves landed between five and twenty percent, with only two years posting a decline, a pattern that looks like organic balance sheet growth rather than a data break.
Why this matters
A rising asset-to-revenue ratio usually signals a sector locking up more capital for every baht it brings in, through property, equipment, or long-lived infrastructure. Financial and insurance behaves this way for a clear reason: loan books and investment portfolios are assets by accounting definition, and Thailand's banks and insurers have grown their balance sheets faster than their revenue lines since 2007. Real estate, mining and utilities show the same logic, tying up land, reserves and grid infrastructure well ahead of the income those assets eventually produce. Wholesale and retail moved the opposite way, trimming its ratio from 0.43x to 0.36x. Its revenue nearly quintupled over the same period, consistent with a trading sector that turns over inventory fast rather than parking capital. For lenders, investors and anyone pricing risk against a Thai company's balance sheet, a section's asset intensity says as much about how the business works as its profit margin does.
Definitions
- Asset-to-revenue ratio
- Aggregate total assets divided by aggregate total revenue for a group of companies in a given year. A ratio of 2.0 means the group held 2 baht of assets for every 1 baht of revenue earned.
- TSIC section
- One of the 21 lettered top-level categories in the Thailand Standard Industrial Classification, such as K for financial and insurance or P for education.
- Statement year
- The fiscal year of a company's filed financial statement. The DBD source system records this in the Buddhist calendar, so 2550 equals 2007 and 2568 equals 2025 in the Gregorian calendar.
- Growth multiple
- The 2025 asset-to-revenue ratio divided by the 2007 ratio for the same section. A multiple of 1.0 means no change, above 1.0 means the section grew more asset heavy, below 1.0 means it grew leaner.
Assumptions
- Only companies that filed a financial statement in the relevant statement year contribute to that year's totals, so the set of companies behind the 2007 figure and the 2025 figure is not identical.
- Sections O, public administration, T, households as employers, and U, extraterritorial organizations, had no usable matched assets and revenue pair in both 2007 and 2025 and are excluded, leaving 18 of 21 sections.
- Ratios are built from summed totals across a section, so a handful of very large companies can move a section's number more than a simple average of individual companies would.
- Education's 2007 to 2025 change is driven mostly by a single-year jump in the 2561 statement year, which is 2018, rather than steady growth across all 18 years, as detailed in the third section above.
Methodology
The asset-to-revenue ratio is aggregate total assets divided by aggregate total revenue for all 5-digit TSIC codes within a lettered section that reported both figures in a given statement year, drawn from the DBD registry via market_tsic_year_insight joined to market_tsic_insight for the section code, as of 17 July 2026. Statement years in the source system follow the Buddhist calendar: 2550 is 2007 and 2568 is 2025. The comparison uses only these two endpoint years rather than summing across the full period, to sidestep the registry coverage expansion that produced an unusual jump in some sections during the 2561 statement year, which is 2018. Ratios are computed from summed totals across all reporting companies in a section, not an average of each company's own ratio, so a small number of very large asset holders can move a section's figure. Sections O, T and U, meaning public administration, households as employers, and extraterritorial organizations, had no usable matched assets and revenue pair in both years and are excluded, leaving 18 of 21 sections.
How we verified this
- Education's ratio was recomputed directly from the summed figures for section P: 31,761,866,426 baht of assets over 12,649,535,147 baht of revenue equals 2.51 in statement year 2550, and 1,123,492,455,286 baht of assets over 53,974,864,369 baht of revenue equals 20.82 in statement year 2568, both rounding to the 2.5x and 20.8x used in the headline.
- Financial and insurance was recomputed the same way from section K: 10,336,242,839,178 baht of assets over 1,291,242,009,674 baht of revenue equals 8.00 in 2550, and 42,686,433,548,750 baht of assets over 2,700,392,016,056 baht of revenue equals 15.81 in 2568.
- The growth multiple for every section was recomputed as the 2568 ratio divided by the 2550 ratio. Education's multiple of 8.29 was confirmed as the highest across the 18 sections with data, more than four times the next steepest, financial and insurance at 1.97.
- Four sections were confirmed to hold a lower ratio in 2568 than in 2550: water and waste fell from 2.30 to 1.94, wholesale and retail trade from 0.43 to 0.36, accommodation and food service from 2.84 to 2.51, and arts and entertainment from 3.33 to 2.09.
- Education's year-by-year asset series was checked across all 19 statement years available in the aggregated TSIC-year table, confirming the single-year jump from 77,233,162,197 baht in statement year 2560 to 1,081,568,542,567 baht in statement year 2561, with revenue moving only from 32,364,195,264 baht to 34,461,002,986 baht across the same jump.
References
- Department of Business Development. (2026). Registered juristic persons and financial statement aggregates. Ministry of Commerce, Thailand. https://www.dbd.go.th/
- OECD. (2025). The corporate sector. In OECD Capital Market Review of Thailand 2025. OECD Publishing. https://www.oecd.org/en/publications/oecd-capital-market-review-of-thailand-2025_0a975590-en/full-report/the-corporate-sector_008c96e5.html
Frequently asked questions
Which Thai industry became the most asset heavy between 2007 and 2025?
Education. Its aggregate asset-to-revenue ratio rose from 2.5x to 20.8x, an eightfold increase. That is the steepest climb of any of the 18 sections with usable data in both years.
Is education's jump a real trend or a data artifact?
Both play a role. The section's assets grew steadily through 2017, then jumped more than tenfold in a single statement year, 2018, which lines up with a known registry coverage expansion. Assets have been nearly flat since, so most of the 2007 to 2025 climb sits in that one year.
Which sections became less asset heavy per baht of revenue?
Four did: water and waste, wholesale and retail trade, accommodation and food service, and arts and entertainment, each ending 2025 with a lower asset-to-revenue ratio than in 2007.
How does financial and insurance compare to education?
Financial and insurance held the highest ratio of any section in both years, 8.0x in 2007 and 15.8x in 2025. Its growth multiple of 2.0x is far smaller than education's 8.3x.
Cite this page
Chatpong L. (2026). Thai Industries That Got More Asset Heavy, 2007 to 2025. Max Data Insights. https://maxdatathailand.com/insights/thai-industry-sections-capital-intensity-trend-2007-2025
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.