Throughout 70 years of the Fortune 500, which ranks the top U.S. corporations by revenue, and 35 years of publishing the Global 500 list, which surveys companies worldwide, economic shifts have prompted Fortune’s researchers to adjust their methodology only occasionally. The biggest shakeup came in 1995, when service providers joined the rankings for the first time, reflecting a world where banks, retail, telecoms, tech, health care, and other players were assuming dominance.
Over the past year, Fortune has been accounting for changes in the global landscape in a new, more granular way: We’ve expanded our “ultimate business scorecard” to focus more closely on additional geographic regions. In November 2023, Fortune 500 Europe debuted. On that list, the top 10 consisted exclusively of energy- and motor-vehicle-sector companies. And today marks the launch of the newest Fortune 500 ranking: The Fortune Southeast Asia 500.
The companies on the SEA 500 skew smaller than your typical 500-ranked firm. The No. 500 company on the Southeast Asia list (Thai Credit Bank) collected $461 million in revenue the past fiscal year, compared with $7.1 billion for the Fortune 500’s No. 500 (O-I Glass) and $30.9 billion for No. 500 on the Global 500 list (Xinjiang Guanghui Industry Investment). Another aspect that is important to grasp when parsing the SEA 500 is how top-heavy it is. Nos. 1–5 on the SEA 500 generated more than one-quarter of the collective revenue of the 500 companies. Year-over-year, these big five saw their combined revenue decrease by 16%. Conversely, the bottom 495 saw their combined sales tick up by about 4% from the prior year.
Despite its differences in scale and distribution, the new Southeast Asia list is no less a telling snapshot of a dynamic, growing region. Read on to learn which sectors took the most spots on the Fortune Southeast Asia 500—and how the new ranking draws parallels to Fortune 500 lists of yesteryear.
The numbers to know
7… the number of countries Fortune surveyed in compiling the SEA 500. These included Indonesia, Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore, Vietnam, and the Philippines (the region’s six core economies), as well as Cambodia.
$4 trillion... the collective GDP of the 500 companies on the SEA 500.
$1.8 trillion… the combined revenue the companies on the Fortune Southeast Asia 500 had in 2023, compared with $18.8 trillion among the U.S. Fortune 500.
26%... the percentage of the SEA 500’s aggregate revenue generated by the top five companies on the list—Trafigura Group, PTT, Pertamina, Olam Group, and Wilmar International.
$244 billion… the 2023 revenue of No. 1 Trafigura Group, the only company on the list with more than $100 billion in revenue.
$461 million… the minimum revenue threshold for companies on the list.
$7.5 billion… the total earnings of DBS Group of Singapore, the most profitable company on the list.
The big picture
The Southeast Asia region has been establishing itself as a manufacturing hub since the mid-20th century, an evolution accelerated this decade by the COVID pandemic and geopolitical tensions that have made it attractive to the world’s largest companies seeking to diversify their supply chains. As Fortune executive editor Clay Chandler writes in his introduction to the Southeast Asia 500 list, “Foreign direct investment to the region is soaring. And with a young and growing population of 680 million, low inflation, and stable exchange rates, Southeast Asia is emerging as an attractive market in its own right.”
Deeper takeaways
Sector breakdowns differ
Companies in the “financials” sector took the greatest number of spots on both the U.S. Fortune 500 and the Southeast Asia 500, with 92 financial companies on the U.S. list and 67 on the SEA list. The lists also highlighted a similar number of energy companies: Energy was the second-most-common sector on the U.S. list, with 61 energy companies represented, and it took fourth place among sectors on the SEA list, with 55 companies.
The top five sectors on the U.S. list (in order) were financials, energy, technology, retailing, and health care. In contrast, the SEA list’s top sectors were: financials; food, beverages, and tobacco; materials; energy; and the “business services” category, which in this region is comprised in large part of real estate companies.
The greater proportion of “materials” companies is one major differentiator among the two lists. (For more on the riches of the region, read the story from Fortune’s Asia issue on Indonesian nickel-mining, published in conjunction with the list.) And that’s not to say that tech, retail, and health care were absent among the SEA 500; there were just fewer of them on the list overall.
For further comparison, the Global 500 (from 2023) leading sectors breakdown looks more like that of the U.S. list: Financials, energy, technology, motor vehicles and parts, and health care were the top five sectors globally.
2024 looks like 1955
The first Fortune 500, published in 1955, ranked solely industrial companies, so the top 10 on that list dealt in commodities. Four of those initial U.S. 500 top 10 produced oil, and two made steel.
On the 2024 Southeast Asia 500, three of the top five are Singapore-based commodities trading companies (Trafigura Group, Olam Group, and Wilmar International), while the other two are state-owned oil and gas producers (PTT of Thailand and Pertamina of Indonesia). Again, these five dwarf the rest of the SEA 500, with their combined sales totaling 26% of the whole list’s aggregate revenues.
So, what will the SEA 500 look like years into the future? Will tech, retail, and health care see gains in the ranking? “There’s no way to know,” writes my colleague Clay Chandler, “if or when those industries might supplant Southeast Asia’s Big Five.” If the SEA 500 ever does more closely mirror the U.S. and Global lists’ breakdowns, by then, how will those two rankings have changed? The only real way to track these shifts is by doing so one year—and one region—at a time.
Lydia Belanger
Director of Production, Fortune
lydia.belanger@fortune.com
