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Trade report
Perlis, not Penang, has the highest food and dining share in HiGo's listings: 20.68% (September 2026)
Of the 16 states and federal territories, only four have something other than food at the top of their listings. Three of them are in East Malaysia.
Rank each place by how much of its HiGo listings is in food and dining, and Penang isn't at the top: it comes fifth, at 17.79%. Perlis leads, at 20.68%.
As of 20 September 2026, HiGo listed 482,074 merchants across Malaysia, 79,798 of them in food and dining: 16.55%, the largest of the 17 industry groups.
Close to one in five of our Perlis listings is in food and dining, 2.89 points above Penang
Perlis has 3,874 merchants in our listings, and 801 of them are in food and dining: 20.68%, the highest of the 16 states and federal territories. Terengganu follows at 18.47%, Kedah at 18.03% and Kelantan at 17.97%.
A big share doesn't mean a big number. Those 801 are the fewest of the 13 states — the federal territories of Putrajaya, with 284, and Labuan, with 142, have fewer — while Selangor on its own has 18,233 merchants in food and dining. The measure here is how much of a place's listings is food, not where the most restaurants are.
The other way round: of the 11 peninsular states plus Kuala Lumpur, 12 places in all, the smallest share belongs to the one with the most listings. Selangor sits at 15.84%, about 1.3 points below Negeri Sembilan just above it. Put all 16 together and the bottom three are Sabah, Sarawak and Labuan, which the next section comes to.
Only four places have something other than food at the top, and three are in East Malaysia
In Sabah, Sarawak, Labuan and Putrajaya, the biggest group is retail: 5,061 merchants in Sabah (17.14%), 4,496 in Sarawak (16.32%), 300 in Putrajaya (16.12%) and 169 in Labuan (15.87%). In the other 12, food and dining comes top.
The gap is widest in Sabah: retail at 17.14% against food and dining at 12.64%, the smallest food share of the 16 states and federal territories. Sarawak is second lowest at 12.88%, Labuan third at 13.33%.
Coffee and tea is 5.72% of Sarawak's listings, the highest in the country and close to twice Selangor's
Of the 27,548 merchants listed in Sarawak, 1,576 are in coffee and tea: 5.72%, the highest of the 16 states and federal territories, and above the national 3.63%. Terengganu comes next at 4.26%, then Penang at 4.24%. Selangor is last, at 3.00%.
The raw counts show it more clearly. Selangor has 4.2 times as many listings as Sarawak, but only 2.1 times as many cafes and coffee shops: Sarawak has 802 cafes and 648 coffee shops, Selangor 1,809 and 1,218.
Stays and travel: 14.92% in Terengganu, more than four times Selangor or KL
Stays and travel make up 14.92% of Terengganu's listings, the highest of the 16 states and federal territories. Perlis follows at 13.68% and Pahang at 13.02%, with Melaka at 11.54% and Kelantan at 10.50% behind them.
Selangor is at 3.48% and Kuala Lumpur at 3.47%. Both are under a quarter of Terengganu's share, and the figure for Malaysia as a whole is 6.72%.
What to do with this
- These figures answer one question: how much of a place's merchant mix is food. They don't say where you'll have the most to choose from. For that, look at the counts: 18,233 food and dining merchants in Selangor, 10,814 in Johor, 8,901 in Kuala Lumpur.
- The same goes for stays and travel. Terengganu at 14.92%, Perlis at 13.68% and Pahang at 13.02% have the highest shares; by count, Terengganu has 2,457 and Perlis 530, both fewer than Selangor's 4,006.
- The latest listing counts by state are on HiGo's Malaysia page, and the industry mix for each state is on that state's own page.
Places nearby
Four listings in Kuching city centre, none of them more than 1.1km apart, rated 4.5 or better with at least 200 reviews and a photo on each HiGo listing. Ratings and review counts were last checked on 4 September 2026.
PC Image Plaza Merdeka
Kohi Mizu コーヒー水 @ Legacy Hill Hotel
Muzium Sejarah Cina, SarawakRoyal Kuching Cruise
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, checked 20 September 2026. Merchants are counted by the state or federal territory on record, including listings with limited details and businesses that have closed; another 3,021 have no location on record and aren't counted anywhere. Our listings don't cover every business in a place, so these shares describe what's in the listings, not market share. Industry groups are assigned by HiGo from each merchant's category, one group per merchant. Ratings and review counts are public Google data, not HiGo scores.
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