All App Store Languages: Which Should You Localize First?

App Store Connect supports 39 localizations — the languages your app binary, listing metadata, and screenshots can each ship in. You don't need all of them on day one, and shipping them in the right order is worth real money. Here's the complete list, and a practical ranking of which to do first.

The complete list

These are the 39 localizations App Store Connect accepts:

Note the regional variants: English alone has Australian, Canadian, U.K., and U.S. entries; Spanish, French, Portuguese, and Chinese also split by region. Variants matter for metadata (storefront matching) more than for the binary — most apps ship one Spanish and one Portuguese binary localization and localize metadata per storefront.

Which languages to localize first

Rank markets by revenue per user × how little English they tolerate:

1. Japanese — the classic first pick: top-tier ARPU, low English proficiency, and users who demonstrably prefer localized apps. Developers repeatedly cite Japan as the market where localization flipped their numbers.
2. German — large paying market, strong preference for German-language products, and text 40–60% longer than English (test your layouts).
3. Korean — high ARPU, mobile-first, English listings underperform badly.
4. French, Spanish, Italian — broad reach across many storefronts; Spanish and French each unlock multiple regions.
5. Simplified Chinese — enormous iOS market; worth it if your category isn't restricted and you can support it.
6. Portuguese (Brazil), Russian, Turkish, Polish… — lower ARPU but often spectacular download growth; several indie 3× stories come from exactly these "smaller" markets (see the numbers).

Metadata first, binary second

For each new market, localize the store listing before or alongside the app — discovery happens in local search, and metadata is a fraction of the word count. Then translate the binary strings so the users you've won stay.

Shipping all of them at once

The old reason to cherry-pick languages was cost — at $350 per language via agencies, 39 was absurd. With per-string credits the math inverts: a 200-string app into every App Store language is $9 once (a 500-string app fits the $25 pack), so "all of them" becomes a defensible default. Upload your .strings or .xcstrings file to Localize Your App, select all 39, review the languages you can read, and ship the lot — the cost guide shows the full comparison.