How Alike Is Each Country's App Store?

The US and UK charts are near-clones. Others share almost nothing. We measured the App Store's borders.

By Dor Bass · Based on 1,401 apps · Data updated 15 Jul 2026

Original research by App Store Hall of Records, computed from our index of 1,401 public App Store listings — every figure here is calculated, never estimated. See our editorial standards and glossary.

We track the free top-100 chart in 25 countries at once, which lets us ask a question you cannot answer from any single storefront: how much does the App Store actually change as you cross borders? By measuring how many apps two countries' charts share, we can put a number on it — and the answer is that there is no single "App Store," but a spectrum from near-clones to almost totally separate worlds.

43.9%shared: Canada & United States (most alike)

0%shared: China & India (least alike)

Chinathe most distinctive storefront

The anglosphere shares one App Store

The most alike pair we found is Canada and United States, whose free charts overlap by 43.9% — the same apps, in nearly the same order. English-speaking and Western European markets cluster tightly: they share a language, similar incomes, and the same global app companies, so their charts read like small variations on one list. If you have seen the US top 100, you have largely seen theirs.

How every country compares to the US

Measured against the United States chart, the falloff is steep and revealing. Nearby markets like Canada share most of the list, while East Asian storefronts share almost none of it. The chart below ranks every country by how much of the US top 100 it echoes — a rough map of cultural and economic distance drawn entirely from app rankings.

Canada43.9%

Australia37.9%

Mexico31.6%

Spain29%

United Kingdom29%

Brazil26.6%

Italy25%

UAE24.2%

France23.5%

Germany22.7%

Philippines21.2%

Netherlands20.5%

Nigeria18.3%

Turkey17.6%

Indonesia17.6%

Vietnam17%

Sweden16.3%

Thailand16.3%

Japan15.6%

Saudi Arabia14.9%

India14.9%

South Korea12.4%

Russia5.3%

China0.5%

The storefronts that go their own way

At the far end sit the genuinely distinct markets. The least similar pair in our set, China and India, share just 0% of their charts. And the most distinctive storefront overall is China, whose top 100 looks least like everyone else's — a sign of a strong local app ecosystem, home-grown super-apps, and tastes that global titles do not dominate. These are the markets where "what's popular" means something entirely different.

The bottom line

There is no universal App Store. A cluster of wealthy, Western markets shares one nearly-identical chart, while a handful of countries — mostly in East Asia — run app economies of their own. For anyone building or picking apps, the lesson is that "top-ranked" is a local fact, not a global one. You can explore any country's live chart yourself on our world charts.

Common questions

Is the App Store the same in every country?

No. We compared the free top-100 charts across 25 countries: wealthy Western markets share nearly identical charts, while several countries — mostly in East Asia — have top 100s that overlap barely at all with the rest of the world.

Which countries have the most similar App Store charts?

English-speaking and Western European markets are the most alike — the US, UK, Canada, and Australia share most of their free charts, because they share a language, similar incomes, and the same global app companies.

Why do some countries have such different app charts?

Strong local ecosystems. Markets with home-grown super-apps, local messaging and payment apps, and distinct tastes rank very different apps at the top, so global titles do not dominate their charts the way they do in the West.

How this was made: this study is computed across 1,401 apps carrying the public App Store metadata it needs, drawn from our live index of 72,021 tracked apps, and is recomputed on a schedule. It is a large, representative sample of the store rather than every app in existence, and the figures shift over time as the store changes. No estimates or third-party numbers are used.