At the top, the commodity and energy giants that have anchored the list since its 2024 debut are slowing down. Yet sluggishness at the very top is masking dynamism throughout the rest of the list, as a new generation of firms\u2014whether Vietnamese conglomerates, Singaporean banks, or once-loss-making digital platforms\u2014is capturing a greater share of regional revenue and profits.<\/p>\n
Companies on this year\u2019s list generated $1.88 trillion in revenue, up 3.4% from the $1.82 trillion reported on the 2025 list. That\u2019s also a faster growth rate than observed last year, despite concerns that U.S. President Donald Trump\u2019s tariffs might disproportionately hurt ASEAN economies. Total profits reached $150 billion, meaning the region enjoyed a 8% net margin, which owes as much to corporate restructuring, like the turnaround at Thai Airways, as it does to economic tailwinds.<\/p>\n
Thailand and Indonesia have the most companies on the list, with 105 and 104, respectively. Singapore leads on revenue, with its SEA 500 companies generating $657.5 billion, just under 35% of the total.<\/p>\n
But it\u2019s Vietnam that\u2019s most exciting. Vietnamese firms on the list generated $177.9 billion in revenue, up 10.5%; that\u2019s triple the regional average and the fastest growth of any country on the ranking, save for tiny Cambodia. Overall, Vietnam is responsible for roughly a quarter of this year\u2019s revenue growth on the SEA 500, despite representing less than 10% of its total revenue base.<\/p>\n
Revenue at Vingroup, No. 26, jumped 69% to $12.8 billion, making it the only firm in the top 50 to be one of the fastest-growing. Vingroup\u2019s role as national champion was reinforced in 2025 when the Politburo elevated the private sector as the \u201cmost important driving force\u201d of Vietnam\u2019s economy.<\/p>\n
If Vietnam is a revenue story, then Singapore is all about profits. The city\u2019s \u201cBig Three\u201d banks\u2014DBS Group, OCBC, and UOB\u2014are again among the region\u2019s most profitable companies; DBS, with $8.4 billion in profit, remains No. 1 on the profitability rankings.<\/p>\n
Five Singaporean firms are among the companies that showed the greatest jumps in profitability. Sea, No. 12, nearly quadrupled its profit to $1.58 billion as all three of its operating engines\u2014Shopee, Monee, and Garena\u2014delivered record profits.<\/p>\n
Thailand gives us two of the year\u2019s most impressive turnaround stories. Thai Airways International, No. 67, which exited bankruptcy protection in 2025 and re-listed on the Stock Exchange of Thailand that same year, swung from a $764 million loss to a $941 million profit. True Corp., No. 62, also returned to profitability after it cleared heavy merger-related write-downs from 2024.<\/p>\n
The award for biggest jump on the list goes to an Indonesian company, gold jewelry maker Hartadinata Abadi, which climbed 115 positions to No. 129. Higher gold prices, rather than sales volume, drove the jump.<\/p>\n
The Southeast Asia 500, like all of\u00a0Fortune\u2019s<\/em>\u00a0500 lists, looks backward, ranking companies according to 2025 revenue. Even as Southeast Asia shrugged off Trump\u2019s tariffs, a new threat looms. War in Iran is hiking energy prices across the region. We\u2019ll have to wait for next year\u2019s list to learn whether Southeast Asia can shrug off an energy crisis as well as it did a tariff one.<\/p>\n This article appears in the June\/July 2026: Asia issue of\u00a0<\/em> Fortune\u00a0with the headline \u201cA two-speed Southeast Asia 500 takes shape.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n #Southeast #Asia #engine #Vietnam<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" This year\u2019s Southeast Asia 500,\u00a0Fortune\u2019s\u00a0annual ranking of the region\u2019s largest companies by revenue, captures a corporate landscape pulling in two directions at once. At the top, the commodity and energy… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":7498,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[1748,4171,3606,5916,3741,840,5768],"class_list":["post-7497","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-finance-news","tag-asia","tag-engine","tag-singapore","tag-southeast","tag-southeast-asia-500","tag-tariffs","tag-vietnam"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fintechpulse8.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7497","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fintechpulse8.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fintechpulse8.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fintechpulse8.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fintechpulse8.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7497"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.fintechpulse8.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7497\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fintechpulse8.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/7498"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fintechpulse8.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7497"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fintechpulse8.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7497"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fintechpulse8.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7497"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/fortune.com\/img-assets\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/SE_500_map_060426_web.png?format=webp&w=1440&q=100\"\/)
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