How the global Google Play ranking works

From 184 national charts to one list: what we count, what we ignore and why.

The raw material

Google Play keeps separate top charts for every country and category: top free, top paid and top grossing. With 184 countries and 49 categories that is several thousand charts, each with up to 200 apps.

The count

For each app we count the countries in which it is in the top 10 of its category's free chart. Then we sort by that count and break ties by the number of number-one spots.

What it rewards

Breadth. A messenger that sits in the top 10 of Communication in 150 countries outranks a game that is number one in the United States only. That is deliberate: the national charts already show depth.

What it ignores

• Paid charts: too small in most countries.
• Positions below 10: the long tail of each chart is noisy.
• Revenue: see the grossing charts on each country page.

Reproducing it with the API

curl -H "X-API-Key: $API_KEY" \
  "https://apiplay.top/api/v1/rankings?id=com.whatsapp&collection=free"

The answer lists every chart position of the app, with the number of countries, the best rank and the number of top-10 places.