Thai Industries With the Widest ROA Swings, 2015 to 2025
In short
Mining and quarrying posted the widest return on assets swing of any Thai industry section between 2015 and 2025, a move of 9.4 percentage points. That took the sector from negative 4.0 percent in 2015 to positive 5.3 percent in 2025. Professional, scientific and technical services swung the other way, falling 4.2 points from 9.4 percent to 5.2 percent even as its total assets more than doubled. Information and communication fell 3.3 points over the same decade. The whole economy barely moved, slipping only 0.6 points from 3.4 percent to 2.8 percent.
Which industry's returns swung the hardest between 2015 and 2025?
Mining and quarrying posted the widest reversal in Thailand's industry register, recomputed from total net profit divided by total assets rather than an average of each company's own ratio. Its return on assets sat at negative 4.0 percent in 2015, when the sector's combined net loss ran against a large fixed asset base of roughly 934 billion baht. Ten years later that same ratio reached positive 5.3 percent, a swing of 9.4 percentage points, the largest of any of the eighteen industry sections with usable data in both years. No other section comes close. Professional, scientific and technical services moved the opposite direction, with its return on assets falling from 9.4 percent to 5.2 percent, a drop of 4.2 percentage points, even though the sector's total assets grew from 966 billion baht to 2.3 trillion baht. Across the whole economy, return on assets barely drifted, from 3.4 percent in 2015 to 2.8 percent in 2025, a decline of only 0.6 points. The sector swings dwarf the national trend by a wide margin.
Return on assets swing by industry section, 2015 to 2025
- Mining and quarrying9
- Professional, scientific and technical-4
- Information and communication-3
- Accommodation and food service3
- Education-2
- Administrative and support-2
- Arts, entertainment and recreation-2
- Water supply and waste management-2
- Transportation and storage2
- Other service activities1
- Agriculture, forestry and fishing1
- Manufacturing-1
- Real estate-1
- Electricity and gas-1
- Financial and insurance-0
- Wholesale and retail trade-0
- Human health and social work0
- Construction0
Figures in percentage points.
Mining and quarrying moved further than any other section, from a loss to a solid positive return. Professional services and information and communication moved the furthest in the opposite direction.
Return on assets by industry section, 2015 versus 2025
| Industry section | ROA 2015 % | ROA 2025 % | Swing, points | Companies 2015 | Companies 2025 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mining and quarrying | -4 | 5 | 9 | 1,841 | 1,952 |
| Professional, scientific and technical | 9 | 5 | -4 | 36,991 | 60,635 |
| Information and communication | 7 | 3 | -3 | 14,642 | 21,057 |
| Accommodation and food service | -0 | 3 | 3 | 17,884 | 34,566 |
| Education | 3 | 1 | -2 | 3,030 | 5,870 |
| Administrative and support | 4 | 2 | -2 | 26,820 | 39,130 |
| Arts, entertainment and recreation | 2 | -0 | -2 | 4,019 | 6,234 |
| Water supply and waste management | 6 | 4 | -2 | 1,181 | 2,066 |
| Transportation and storage | 3 | 5 | 2 | 19,266 | 28,682 |
| Other service activities | -0 | 1 | 1 | 3,456 | 8,287 |
| Agriculture, forestry and fishing | 1 | 2 | 1 | 2,491 | 7,541 |
| Manufacturing | 5 | 4 | -1 | 68,081 | 82,520 |
| Real estate | 2 | 1 | -1 | 47,461 | 75,896 |
| Electricity and gas | 5 | 4 | -1 | 2,527 | 3,398 |
| Financial and insurance | 2 | 2 | -0 | 9,810 | 16,332 |
| Wholesale and retail trade | 4 | 4 | -0 | 157,259 | 235,485 |
| Human health and social work | 7 | 7 | 0 | 2,717 | 9,243 |
| Construction | 3 | 3 | 0 | 59,690 | 75,263 |
Aggregate return on assets, total net profit divided by total assets, statement years 2558 and 2568 Buddhist calendar equal to 2015 and 2025. Sorted by the size of the swing.
Why the swings matter more than the averages
A single return on assets figure for the whole economy hides violent moves underneath it. Mining and quarrying's reversal lines up with the commodity cycle described in the World Bank's commodity markets outlook, where metals and mineral prices fell hard in the years after 2015 before firming later in the decade (World Bank, 2025). A section that was absorbing losses against a large fixed asset base in 2015 can look like a completely different industry by 2025 once prices turn. Professional, scientific and technical services tells the opposite story. Its net profit grew about 32 percent over the decade while its total assets grew about 138 percent, so the same baht of profit now sits against a much heavier balance sheet. That kind of dilution rarely shows up in a single year's headline number. It only becomes visible when someone lines up the start and the end of a full decade side by side, which is exactly why a snapshot ranking of profitable industries can miss the sectors moving fastest underneath it.
Definitions
- Return on assets
- Aggregate net profit divided by aggregate total assets for all companies in a group that filed a financial statement in a given year. It measures how much profit a baht of assets generates.
- Percentage point
- The unit used to describe a change between two percentages. A move from negative 4.0 percent to positive 5.3 percent is a swing of 9.4 percentage points, not 9.4 percent.
- TSIC section
- The top level of Thailand's Standard Industrial Classification, one of eighteen lettered groups covered here, such as B for mining and quarrying or M for professional, scientific and technical services, each made up of many five digit industry codes.
- Statement year
- The fiscal year covered by a company's filed financial statement, recorded in the registry using the Buddhist calendar. Statement year 2558 equals calendar year 2015 and statement year 2568 equals calendar year 2025.
- Aggregate ratio
- A ratio built by summing the numerator and the denominator across every company first and dividing once, rather than averaging each company's own ratio. This keeps a handful of extreme outlier companies from distorting the result.
Assumptions
- Return on assets is recomputed from summed total net profit and summed total assets, not averaged from each company's own reported ratio, because a small number of near zero asset companies produce extreme outlier ratios.
- Only companies that filed a financial statement for that specific statement year are included, and the number of filing companies grew over the decade as registry coverage expanded, so part of each section's asset growth reflects more companies reporting rather than existing companies growing alone.
- Sections O, public administration, U, extraterritorial organizations, and T, households, are excluded because they had no usable data in one or both of the two statement years.
- Figures are rounded to one decimal place for display, so a swing may differ from the two rounded figures shown by a tenth of a point.
- Education's total assets grew more than fifteen fold over the decade, most likely reflecting a small number of large institutions entering the filing registry rather than organic growth at existing schools, so that section's swing should be read with extra caution.
Methodology
Return on assets for each industry section is computed by summing total net profit and total assets across every five digit TSIC code inside that section for a given statement year, then dividing once, using the Department of Business Development registry as of 17 July 2026. This aggregate approach is used instead of averaging each company's own reported ratio because a small number of companies with near zero assets or equity produce extreme outlier ratios that would otherwise dominate a simple average. Statement year 2558 stands for calendar year 2015 and statement year 2568 stands for calendar year 2025 under the Buddhist calendar used in the registry. Only companies that filed a financial statement for that statement year are counted, and sections with no usable data in one or both years are excluded.
How we verified this
- Mining and quarrying, section B: statement year 2558 total net profit of negative 37.78 billion baht divided by total assets of 933.94 billion baht equals negative 4.05 percent, rounded to negative 4.0 percent. Statement year 2568 total net profit of 60.75 billion baht divided by total assets of 1137.65 billion baht equals 5.34 percent, rounded to 5.3 percent. The swing is 5.34 minus negative 4.05, equal to 9.39 percentage points, rounded to 9.4.
- Professional, scientific and technical, section M: statement year 2558 total net profit of 91.02 billion baht divided by total assets of 965.52 billion baht equals 9.43 percent. Statement year 2568 total net profit of 120.36 billion baht divided by total assets of 2298.97 billion baht equals 5.24 percent. The swing is 5.24 minus 9.43, equal to negative 4.19 percentage points, rounded to negative 4.2. Total assets rose from 965.52 billion baht to 2298.97 billion baht, a ratio of 2.38, while net profit rose from 91.02 billion baht to 120.36 billion baht, a ratio of 1.32, confirming the asset base more than doubled while profit grew only about a third.
- All 18 industry sections with usable data in both statement years were sorted by the absolute value of their return on assets swing. Mining and quarrying ranked first at 9.4 points and professional, scientific and technical ranked second at negative 4.2 points, confirming the two headline figures.
- National aggregate return on assets from the year level table was 3.40 percent for statement year 2558 and 2.84 percent for statement year 2568, a decline of 0.56 percentage points, rounded to 0.6, confirming that both section level swings are far larger than the whole economy's movement.
References
- Department of Business Development. (2026). Registered juristic persons and financial statement aggregates. Ministry of Commerce, Thailand. https://www.dbd.go.th/
- World Bank. (2025). Commodity markets outlook: Pink sheet, March 2025. World Bank Group. https://thedocs.worldbank.org/en/doc/18675f1d1639c7a34d463f59263ba0a2-0050012025/related/CMO-Pink-Sheet-March-2025.pdf
Frequently asked questions
Which Thai industry section had the biggest return on assets swing between 2015 and 2025?
Mining and quarrying, section B. Its return on assets moved from negative 4.0 percent in 2015 to positive 5.3 percent in 2025, a swing of 9.4 percentage points, recomputed from aggregate net profit divided by aggregate total assets.
Why did professional, scientific and technical services see its return on assets fall so much?
The sector's total assets more than doubled between 2015 and 2025 while its total net profit grew only about a third, so profit failed to keep pace with a fast growing asset base and the ratio fell from 9.4 percent to 5.2 percent.
Is return on assets the same measure as net margin?
No. Net margin measures profit against revenue, while return on assets measures profit against the balance sheet. A section can improve on one measure without improving on the other.
Did the whole Thai economy's return on assets change much between 2015 and 2025?
Barely. National aggregate return on assets slipped from 3.40 percent in 2015 to 2.84 percent in 2025, a decline of 0.6 percentage points, far smaller than any of the sector level swings above.
Cite this page
Chatpong L. (2026). Thai Industries With the Widest ROA Swings, 2015 to 2025. Max Data Insights. https://maxdatathailand.com/insights/thai-industry-sections-with-the-widest-roa-swings-2015-2025
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.