[INFOGRAPHIC] Apple’s Top Trending Searches of 2019

Carmen Longoby 
Former Junior Product Manager at AppTweak

4 min read

We have completely revamped our Trending Keywords section to make it more insightful. You can now find today’s Trending Keywords and past suggestions in our keyword picker. This tool will help you discover when your brand or your competitors’ brands were suggested as Trending Keywords. Read our blog if you want to know what keywords appeared the most in Trending Keywords.


The Trending Searches are the keywords that are suggested in the App Store when a user is about to perform a search. These keywords are curated by Apple among the most searched keywords on the store to improve the user experience and help users discover popular apps or games This section is very dynamic as it can change many times a day. However, we have noticed that some keywords in the list usually remain all day long while others keep changing.

Trending keywords - AppTweak ASO Tool

In addition we have observed is that the trending keywords are always brand names. This means that some apps are promoted by Apple in the Search tab. Even if this section is not as visible as the featurings the Today tab it still has a considerable impact on the Search Popularity of the brand keywords, which ultimately will translate into an increase of the organic downloads.

To illustrate this, we looked at several brands that appeared in the Trending Keywords suggestions between October 27 and November 2 in the UK to see how this affected the Search Popularity of those keywords.

Trending Keywords - AppTweak ASO tool

As you can see in the image above, in most cases, when a keyword appeared as Trending Keyword in the App Store, there is a boost in its Search Popularity.

Although there is a clear correlation between Trending Keywords and Search Popularity, the way Apple selects the keywords that will be shown in trending keywords is still unclear. Furthermore, we have seen that Apple is redesigning the Trending Keywords section.

Trending Searches - AppTweak ASO tool

The screenshot on the left was taken in the US on an iPhone with iOS 13. We see that apps and games are divided into two groups and renamed « Explore ». This page in only available in the US for now which could mean that Apple is still AB testing both options. Devices on iOS 12 or lower can still see the old page (screenshot on the right).

What were the most suggested keywords of 2019?

As we are slowly reaching the end of the year, we thought it would be interesting to look back at the most suggested brands of 2019. For this study, we took four main geos (United States, United Kingdom, France and Germany) and analyzed the recurring Trending Keywords between January 1st and December 3rd 2019.

Trending Searches - AppTweak ASO toolTrending Searches - AppTweak ASO tool

Overall we can see that the trending keywords are similar between countries, yet there are apps that are specific to some countries.

If we look closer at the trending games, the keyword “candy crush” is among the top trending keywords in all four markets, “pokemon go” is in 3 out of 4 markets, “toon blast” is in the US and UK, and finally France and Germany seem to be more fond of the Supercell titles “clash of clans” and “clash royale”.

We can also observe some trends among music players : “amazon music” is very popular in the UK and Germany, while “deezer” is more focused in France and Germany, and “youtube” is more popular in the US and the UK.

In the UK, driving license theory apps are quite popular as “theory 4 in 1” and “the official dvsa theory test kit” are among the top 10 Trending Keywords although these are paid apps.

Finally, the record for days in Trending Keywords goes to Deezer which has appeared for 332 days since the beginning of 2019, which means that the app is promoted by Apple almost everyday! As we have seen before this has a considerable impact on the Search Popularity of the keyword “deezer” and therefore on their organic installs.


We hope you found this article insightful and you can’t wait to play with our new Trending Keywords tool. Let us know if you discover new insights on Trending Keywords we are always happy to learn more about this blackbox!

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Carmen Longo
by , Former Junior Product Manager at AppTweak
Carmen is a former Senior Product Manager at AppTweak. Her expertise in ASO helps her to continuously improve and build disruptive features. Like most “Apptweakers”, her life revolves around food.