How Does Malaysia Measure Up? The IKEA Billy Bookcase Index Reveals All

From the Big Mac to the Billy bookcase, everyday globals products can offer surprisingly revealing snapshots of purchasing power, local costs, and economic differences.

You may have heard of the Big Mac Index, The Economist’s light-hearted but surprisingly useful way of comparing the purchasing power of currencies around the world. The idea is simple: because a McDonald’s Big Mac is broadly the same product wherever it is sold, comparing its price in different countries can offer a rough indication of whether a currency is overvalued or undervalued against the US dollar.

The Big Mac Index is not a precise economic instrument. Prices are influenced by local wages, rents, taxes, transportation, ingredients, and operating costs. Nevertheless, it provides an accessible way of thinking about purchasing power parity, or PPP – the idea that exchange rates should, over time, reflect the relative cost of buying the same goods and services in different economies.

The Big Mac, however, is not the only everyday product that can be used for this kind of comparison. There is also the Billy Bookcase Index, which takes its inspiration from IKEA’s ubiquitous flat-packed shelving unit.

Introduced in 1979, the six-shelf Billy bookcase has become one of IKEA’s most recognizable and successful products. More than 140 million units have reportedly been sold worldwide, making it one of the company’s best-selling products and a familiar sight in homes, offices, dormitories, and rental apartments across the globe.

Its international availability makes it a useful candidate for comparison. In 2017, Bloomberg created the Billy Bookcase Index to track the price of the same basic product in different markets. The index focuses specifically on the six-shelf Billy bookcase in white, which is generally the least expensive finish. Other versions, including wood-effect finishes such as oak, birch, or walnut, may carry different prices.

Unlike the Big Mac Index, the Billy Bookcase Index does not use one country as a formal benchmark. Instead, it simply compares the relative price of the same IKEA product across markets, offering an accessible illustration of how purchasing power and retail costs can vary from one country to another.

The figures presented here are based on prices listed on IKEA’s national websites, converted into US dollars and rounded up to the nearest dollar. The prices were collected on August 21, 2026.

The results are revealing. The Billy bookcase is cheapest in Japan and the Philippines, where it costs approximately $57. At the other end of the scale, the same white bookcase costs around $141 in both Morocco and the Dominican Republic. That is a difference of $84 for a product that is, in principle, the same size, design, and brand.

There are also notable differences within Europe. Prices across the eurozone range from approximately $58 to $90, despite many countries sharing the same currency. Germany, Belgium, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Slovenia, and the Netherlands are among the least expensive markets, with prices of around $58. Iceland, by contrast, comes in at approximately $90.

IKEA’s home country, Sweden, records a price of around $74, putting it above several other European markets. The bookcase is manufactured in several countries, including Sweden, Slovakia, Germany, and China, but proximity to manufacturing does not necessarily translate into the lowest retail price.

That is because the final price of a Billy bookcase is shaped by much more than its production cost. Each IKEA market must account for transportation and logistics, property costs, labor, taxes, tariffs, exchange-rate movements, local competition, consumer purchasing power, and inflation.

IKEA also operates through a franchise structure. Inter IKEA Systems B.V. owns the IKEA brand and concept, while independent franchisees operate stores in individual markets. The largest franchisee, Ingka Group, operates in 29 markets, while other countries are managed by a group of additional franchisees. Each franchisee pays a fixed 3% fee on sales, but individual markets retain flexibility over their pricing.

The index covers IKEA’s current markets, including 59 countries, as well as Puerto Rico and Hong Kong/Macau. It does not include Russia, where IKEA suspended operations following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022 before subsequently exiting the market entirely. Operations in Belarus were also closed.

For Malaysian shoppers, the comparison is particularly interesting. The Billy bookcase costs approximately $62 in Malaysia, placing it solidly toward the cheaper end of the international range. That is slightly more expensive than the Philippines, at $57, and Thailand, at $61, but less than Indonesia, at $74, and Singapore, at $70.

Of course, the Billy Bookcase Index should be treated as an entertaining economic snapshot rather than a definitive measure of national prosperity. A bookcase is not a universal necessity in the same way that food, housing, or basic services are, and IKEA’s presence, supply chain, and competitive position vary from market to market.

Still, the index illustrates an important point: even a mass-produced, globally recognizable product can have dramatically different prices depending on where it is sold. Whether it is a hamburger, a cup of coffee, a smartphone, or a flat-packed bookcase, the price tag can tell us a surprising amount about the economic conditions surrounding it.

Sources: IKEA; Bloomberg; Visual Capitalist