The Relationship between Competitive Advantage and Profitability in The Food and Beverage Industry Listed on The Stock Exchange of Thailand

Abstract

The purposes of this research were to study 1) competitive advantage, 2) profitability, and 3) the relationship between competitive advantage is related to the profitability of companies listed on the Stock Exchange of Thailand in the agro-food and beverage industry group, selected by purposive sampling from the top 10 companies with the highest registered capital. The secondary data from the 2019 Annual Report, Form 56-1 were used for data collection, and financial statements were used to analyze the data. The statistical analyzes of the data were maximum, minimum, mean, standard deviation, and Pearson’s correlation coefficient. The results of the research revealed the competitive advantage of listed companies in the Stock Exchange of Thailand in the Agro-Food and Beverage Industry Group Overall, it was at a high level. When considering each aspect, it was found that the area with the highest competitive advantage was cost advantage, followed by differentiation advantage, and the area with the least competitive advantage was local cost advantage. As for the profitability of companies listed on the Stock Exchange of Thailand, the agro-industrial and beverage group found that the profitability was the highest, that was, the business had a high net profit margin, followed by the gross profit margin, and the rate of return on equity. The results of the hypothesis test showed that the Company's cost advantage was the company's leadership in modern engineering and technology, which is significantly correlated with the gross profit margin in the opposite direction in statistically significant at the .05 level.