The Countries Apple Cares About Most
Which countries are highest priority for future map expansions?
January 2022

With the exceptions of the U.S., the U.K., and Ireland, Apple generally hasn’t been releasing countries in the same order as it had originally surveyed them.

Canada is a good example. Though it was the thirteenth country surveyed by Apple—it was the fourth to be released. And the same goes for Australia, which was released before several other countries that Apple had surveyed years earlier:

So in addition to the survey dates published on Apple’s website, are there other clues that can help us understand which countries Apple might be prioritizing?

For instance, it seems likely that Apple will target countries where it has high marketshare, especially in mobile. If so, this suggests that Apple might start surveying Denmark soon and that it also likely has high interest in Japan:

But if you look closely, several of the countries listed above are actually quite small in terms of population, like Monaco and Liechtenstein.

So a better approach is to try to estimate the total number of iOS users in each country. Crunching smartphone penetration stats against mobile marketshare data, we end up with these estimates:

Here we see that China, the U.S., and Japan are Apple’s top three countries. But notice also how far up the list France and Germany appear.^{1, 2}

France, Germany, and Japan also rank highly in terms of the total number of Apple Stores per country. They’re the only countries in the Top 10—other than Mainland China—that Apple hasn’t yet released:

And given that two-thirds of the Top 9 on the list above have already been released...

...it almost seems as if Apple is working through the Apple Store list (and adding smaller neighboring countries, like Ireland and Portugal, along the way).³

If we look at the Apple Store list in a slightly different way, we see even more patterns. For instance, here’s the number of Apple Stores per capita (i.e., the number of stores per person) in each country:

Notice that Apple has either released or surveyed all of the Top 19—except for tiny Macau and the relatively isolated U.A.E. (which isn’t near any other country that Apple has surveyed thus far).

In addition to Apple Store counts, we also have records of all of the countries that Apple has surveyed as part of its three earlier data collection projects: Flyover, transit, and indoor:

Notice that this list has seemed predictive of the major countries (in bold below) that Apple has released so far...

...and it also shows us that the Apple Maps team has consistently shown interest in Austria, the Czech Republic, Finland, France, Germany, Japan, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Sweden, Switzerland, and Taiwan across all three of these earlier projects.

Speaking of Apple’s data collection projects, one final thing that has been especially predictive of new map expansions has been the timing and locations of Apple’s pedestrian image collection effort:

With the exception of Canada, this list has correctly forecasted the ordering of the major countries that Apple has expanded to thus far. And it suggests that Germany, Japan, and France are the likeliest candidates for Apple’s next expansions.

Putting together all of the different data points we’ve looked at so far, it would seem as if the seventeen countries with the highest scores in the table below (8’s, 7’s, 6’s, and 5’s) are likely the highest priority for Apple:

This suggests that Apple’s expansions over the next couple of years are likeliest to include Austria, France, Germany, Japan, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Singapore, Sweden, Switzerland, Taiwan, and smaller countries immediately neighboring them.

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1  It would appear that countries like India, Brazil, and Indonesia are high priority for Apple, given the sheer number of iOS users within them:

But even though those numbers seem large, they’re actually very small percentages of each country. For instance, iOS users comprise just 1% of India’s population, 8% of Brazil’s, and 5% of Indonesia’s:

So given how large these countries are in terms of land area, it’s unclear if Apple will expend the effort or expense to map them.

Reordering the percentages from highest to lowest, we see that the country with the highest percentage of iOS users is actually the U.S.—which helps explain why the U.S. is often first to receive new Apple Maps features:

Spain, meanwhile, has the lowest percentage of the countries Apple has mapped so far. Given this, it’s a bit surprising that Apple shipped Spain before some of the other countries with higher shares of users, like the Netherlands, Germany, and France.

Then again, Spain is the world’s second most visited country, so Apple may also be taking tourism stats into account:

But it isn’t clear if Apple will ever survey countries with lower percentages of iOS users than Spain:

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2  Apple’s net sales also seem to confirm that China, the U.S., and Japan are Apple’s top three countries:

Taken together, these countries comprise 63% of Apple’s net sales and contain 65% of Apple’s 516 retail stores.

According to Apple’s most recent financial statement, “the U.S. and China were the only countries that accounted for more than 10% of the company’s net sales in 2021, 2020, and 2019.” ↩︎

3  There seems to be something to this Apple Store thing.

For instance, if you look at the total number of Apple Stores in each U.S. metro, you’ll see that it has been quite predictive of the cities that have received Look Around and the Detailed City Experience. ↩︎