Short answer: Admiral Media’s App Store Localization Study 2026 (data from 2 Nov 2026) found Sweden and the Netherlands the least localized of 14 storefronts. Among top apps that support the language, 45% in Sweden (23 of 51) and 44% in the Netherlands (28 of 63) had a listing not fully localized, against 21% in Germany (24 of 116).
Table of Contents
Where store listings lag the app
The study compares what an app supports with what its store page shows. A pair is one app in one storefront, and only pairs where the app binary lists the storefront’s language count. So every gap below is a market where the app already speaks the language and the listing does not fully follow.
- Sweden45% · 23 of 51
- Netherlands44% · 28 of 63
- Poland36% · 24 of 67
- Turkey30% · 25 of 82
- Mexico25% · 29 of 115
- Italy23% · 26 of 111
- Germany21% · 24 of 116
- Brazil20% · 21 of 106
- Spain20% · 24 of 118
- France20% · 24 of 119
- South Korea15% · 10 of 65
- Japan14% · 13 of 94
What the numbers show
Smaller European storefronts trail. Poland follows at 36% and Turkey at 30%. Every European storefront in the study sits between 20% and 45%, while Japan (14%) and South Korea (15%) are the most localized of the 14.
Fewer apps support Swedish and Dutch, and fewer of those localize the listing. Of the top apps listed in Sweden whose base listing is in another language, 37% support Swedish and 26% show a Sweden-specific screenshot set. In the Netherlands the two shares are 44% and 31%. In Germany they are 83% and 71%.
The count of gaps is similar, the base is not. Germany has 24 gaps and Sweden 23, but Germany has 116 language-supported pairs against 51 in Sweden. A similar number of gaps becomes a much larger share in a market where fewer apps support the language at all.
How the study worked
Admiral Media read the public App Store listings of 150 top apps (by rating count, at most 8 per portfolio) from 25 app portfolios in 14 storefronts on 2 November 2026. A pair counts as not fully localized when the app supports the storefront’s language but the listing shows exactly the base listing’s screenshot set, or a description that is identical to the base listing or detected in the base language (full method and limits).
Across all 1,107 app and storefront pairs where the app supports the local language, 271 (24%) were not fully localized. The data is a one-day snapshot of public store pages. It cannot see custom product pages, downloads or conversion, and the 25 portfolios were chosen by Admiral Media, not sampled at random.
What to do about it
- Map languages against storefronts. For each app, list the languages on its product page next to the storefronts where it is listed. Every supported language without a localized listing is a gap.
- Open Sweden, the Netherlands and Poland first. Swap the country code in the product page link (/se/, /nl/, /pl/) and compare the screenshots and description with your base listing.
- Localize the screenshots, not only the description. A translated description next to the base listing’s screenshots still counts as not fully localized.
- Give smaller storefronts a release slot. Put every app and storefront in a tier, so Swedish and Dutch listings ship in the same update cycle as German and French. Our App Store Optimization team plans portfolios this way.
Data: Admiral Media App Store Localization Study 2026, collected 2 Nov 2026.
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