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Fortune’s first-ever Southeast Asia 500 list captures a regional economy shaped by geopolitics and high growth

Clay Chandler, Nicholas Gordon
·3 min read

Good morning from Hong Kong.

Jeremy Kahn’s fascinating Fortune cover story on Satya Nadella opens with a vignette from the Microsoft CEO’s recent whirlwind trip through Southeast Asia. He stopped in Malaysia and Indonesia, where he announced billion-dollar investments, as well as Thailand, where he promised “significant commitments” to open a new data center.

Nadella is among a parade of Fortune 500 CEOs who have trooped through Southeast Asia in recent months. In April, Apple CEO Tim Cook traveled to Vietnam, Indonesia and Singapore, promising new spending in the region. In December, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang swept through Malaysia and Vietnam, declaring the latter country destined to become the chipmaker’s “second home.”

What’s more, Amazon Web Services committed $9 billion to grow its cloud infrastructure in Singapore. Google is investing $2 billion in a data center and cloud facility in Malaysia, where Tesla opened a regional headquarters and service center last summer.

Geopolitics partly is driving the surge in foreign investment deals in Southeast Asia. As trade relations between the U.S and China deteriorate, many Western multinationals are “de-risking” by shifting supply lines out of China.

But Southeast Asia is an attractive market in its own right. The region’s GDP grew more than 56% to nearly $4 trillion between 2015 to 2023, according to the International Monetary Fund.

Fortune has been watching the rise of Southeast Asia’s economies with keen interest. We’re expanding our operations in the region. And today, we’re launching our first-ever Fortune Southeast Asia 500 ranking of the largest firms in seven Southeast Asian countries based on fiscal year 2023 revenue.

A few key takeaways:
—The SEA 500 reported total revenues of $1.8 trillion, a drop of $45 billion, or 2.5% from last year. Earnings shrank to $130 billion, or 9.6% from 2022.
—List No. 1, Singapore-based commodities trading giant Trafigura, had revenue of $244 billion. The minimum revenue threshold for the list was $461 million.
—The list’s most profitable firm was DBS Group, with earnings of $7.5 billion. Nine of the list’s 20 most profitable companies were banks.
—Five firms on the SEA 500 were large enough to also be included on last year’s Fortune Global 500 ranking, for which the revenue cutoff was $31 billion. Those five accounted for 26% of revenue generated by all companies on the SEA 500 list.
—Indonesia, the region’s largest economy, is home to the most firms on the list with 110, followed by Thailand (107), Malaysia (89), Singapore (84), Vietnam (70), the Philippines (38). Cambodia has two companies on this year’s list.

You can read more about the ranking here. And don’t miss Nicholas Gordon’s profile of one of the list’s most successful companies, Manila-based restaurant chain Jollibee, or Robert Horn’s insightful analysis of Thailand’s tourism rebound.

More news below.

Clay Chandler
clay.chandler@fortune.com
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This story was originally featured on Fortune.com