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State report · Kuala Lumpur
Kuala Lumpur merchants average 4.28 in HiGo's listings, the lowest of the 16 states and federal territories (October 2026)
Kuala Lumpur comes last of the 16 in three of the 17 industry groups: retail 4.21, property and housing 4.22, industrial and manufacturing 4.33. Places of worship, on 4.60, and leisure and entertainment, on 4.40, still beat their national figures.
Kuala Lumpur is not short of shops: HiGo lists 50,249 of them, 10.42% of the 482,074 listed across Malaysia. Average out the public Google ratings of the 47,790 that carry one, though, and the city comes last of the 16 states and federal territories.
As of 10 October 2026, HiGo listed 50,249 merchants in Kuala Lumpur, 47,790 of them with a Google rating. Those 47,790 average 4.28, against 4.33 for the country, and Kuala Lumpur is the only one of the 16 states and federal territories sitting that low.
At 4.28, Kuala Lumpur sits last of the 16 states and federal territories, on its own at the bottom
Perlis leads on 4.40, then Terengganu 4.39, Kelantan 4.38 and Kedah 4.37. Sarawak, Pahang and Putrajaya share the second-lowest figure, 4.31, and Putrajaya has only 1,775 rated merchants in all. Kuala Lumpur is on 4.28, with nothing below it.
That is 0.05 below the national 4.33 and 0.12 below Perlis on 4.40. On a five-point scale the gaps are narrow, but last is still last.
The average counts only merchants that carry a rating: 459,924 of the 482,074 listings across Malaysia, or 95.41%. In Kuala Lumpur it is 47,790 of 50,249, or 95.11%. All 16 states and federal territories fall between 94.27% and 96.05%, so coverage is much the same everywhere.
Those 47,790 still include listings already marked permanently closed: 5,540 of them in Kuala Lumpur, or 11.59%, and their ratings count towards the average all the same. Strip the closed ones out and Kuala Lumpur reads 4.30 — still the lowest of the 16, still with nothing below it.
Kuala Lumpur comes last of the 16 in three of the 17 industry groups
- Retail (clothes shops, convenience stores, grocers, phone shops and the like): 7,599 rated merchants, averaging 4.21, against 4.27 for the group nationally.
- Property and housing: 2,526 rated merchants, averaging 4.22, against 4.40 nationally. Of the 3,033 listings this group holds in Kuala Lumpur, only 367 are agencies, brokers, consultants or developers; most of the rest are the properties themselves — 1,073 apartments, 505 apartment blocks, 408 condominium complexes — and the apartment category mixes in short-stay listings let by the unit, as their names show.
- Industrial and manufacturing (food suppliers, manufacturers, warehouses and the like): 1,210 rated merchants, averaging 4.33, against 4.38 nationally. The bottom of this group is tightly packed: Penang, one place above on 4.34, is 0.01 clear, and above that sit Perak on 4.35 and Selangor on 4.36.
In two of those groups the bottom two are the same pair: retail ends Selangor 4.25, then Kuala Lumpur 4.21, and property and housing ends Selangor 4.33, then Kuala Lumpur 4.22. In both groups the last two spots in the country belong to Kuala Lumpur and Selangor. Industrial and manufacturing breaks that pattern: Selangor is on 4.36 there, 13th.
Stays and travel reads 4.14 — 15th of the 16, and not the group's lowest
Kuala Lumpur has 1,638 rated merchants in stays and travel, averaging 4.14 against 4.36 for the group nationally. Of Kuala Lumpur's own 17 groups, only government and public services, on 4.03, reads lower. Across the 16 it ranks 15th: Labuan is lowest on 4.09, a figure resting on only 75 rated merchants, and Terengganu highest on 4.49 (2,372 rated merchants), 0.35 clear of Kuala Lumpur.
Stays and travel is not the group that varies most across the country, either. Compare each group's highest state or federal territory with its lowest: government and public services spans 0.46, the widest, then stays and travel on 0.40 and industrial and manufacturing on 0.37.
Kuala Lumpur is not low everywhere: places of worship 4.60 and leisure 4.40 beat their national figures
In two of the 17 groups Kuala Lumpur comes in above the national figure for the same group: places of worship on 4.60 (443 rated merchants, against 4.58 nationally), 6th of the 16, and leisure and entertainment on 4.40 (1,743 rated merchants, against 4.37 nationally), 4th. Education and training, on 4.57 (1,847 rated merchants), matches the national 4.57 and ranks 5th.
How to read this
- These figures say one thing only: the average rating of the rated merchants in one state or federal territory, in one industry group. They don't say where the shops are better or worse, and they say nothing about any single shop.
- If you're shopping, or sourcing from factories and suppliers in Kuala Lumpur, retail and industrial and manufacturing are two of the three groups where the city sits last of the 16, so read past the stars to the review counts and the most recent reviews.
- That 4.22 for property and housing is not a verdict on estate agencies: only 367 of the group's listings are agencies, brokers, consultants or developers, most of the rest being the properties themselves, and the apartment category mixes in short-stay listings let by the unit. It will mislead you on agencies.
- The averages include listings marked permanently closed — 5,540 of Kuala Lumpur's rated listings, or 11.59%. Check a place is still trading before you set off.
- Comparing the same industry in two states or federal territories? Check how many rated merchants sit behind each figure: stays and travel in Labuan has only 75, and Putrajaya has 1,775 across every group. Where the numbers are that small, a place changes position easily.
- Ratings are public Google ratings, not HiGo scores, and nothing on record explains why Kuala Lumpur reads low.
- The latest listing counts by industry are on HiGo's Kuala Lumpur page.
Places nearby
Picked from Kuala Lumpur's retail group: rated 4.7 or better, 200 reviews or more, not marked permanently closed, and carrying a checked real photo on record — that last one is a condition of HiGo's own records, not a bar the shop has to clear. The four with the most reviews are below, in four different parts of the city. Ratings and review counts were last checked on 4 September 2026.
Ratings and review counts come from Google's public data, as recorded by HiGo on 4 September 2026. They are not a HiGo ranking or recommendation.
Data: HiGo merchant listings, queried 10 October 2026. Every average here covers only those merchants that carry a public Google rating, whether the figure is for a state or federal territory or for one industry group inside it; merchants without a rating are left out of the average. Our listings don't cover every business in Malaysia, nor every business in Kuala Lumpur. Kuala Lumpur, Putrajaya and Labuan are federal territories rather than states. The averages include listings marked permanently closed. HiGo puts each merchant in one industry group, based on its category. The states and federal territories don't add up to the national total, and neither do the industry groups, so every national figure here comes from the national table. Ratings are public Google data, not HiGo scores.
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