Fortune magazine has released a rating of the five hundred largest firms in Southeast Asia, generally known as the Fortune Southeast Asia 500 for 2024. In this rating, Fortune categorizes firms based on their revenues for the 2023 financial 12 months.
This inaugural list of Southeast Asia’s largest firms includes firms from seven Southeast Asian countries, namely Indonesia, Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore, Vietnam, the Philippines and Cambodia.
Indonesia dominates the list with 110 firms, followed by Thailand with 107 firms. Malaysia with 89 firms surpasses Singapore which has 84 firms. Vietnam tops the list with 70 firms, the Philippines has 38 and Cambodia has two.
In terms of revenue, Singapore-based commodity trading company Trafigura tops the list, dominating with sales of $244 billion.
This privately held minerals, metals and energy trading company has the fewest employees among the many ten largest firms on the list by revenue and is the second most profitable company within the group.
Overall, revenues and profits have declined over the past 12 months for the five hundred largest firms in Southeast Asia. But this shift, driven by a weak energy market, dwarfs impressive growth stories across industries.
Fast-growing firms include Indonesian miners Harita Nickel and Merdeka Battery Materials, travel agencies akin to Thai Airways, and various insurance and banking firms.
Clay Chandler, Asia editor, explained that Fortune’s list of the five hundred largest firms in Southeast Asia reflects a dynamic and rapidly changing region where core economies are growing much faster than those in Europe or the United States.
“This is partly because Southeast Asia plays a rather more significant role in the worldwide economy, especially because many Global 500 multinational corporations have moved more of their supply chains to Southeast Asian countries,” he said in a press release on Tuesday. in a written declaration (18/06/2024).
