App Store localization
Translating and adapting your store listing — name, subtitle, keywords, screenshots and description — per storefront.
App Store localization means shipping a per-language version of your listing. Each localization has its own app name, subtitle, description, keyword field and screenshot set, and Apple treats them as separate indexed listings for that storefront.
Across the top-grossing apps tracked here, a little under half ship localized screenshot sets rather than one English set, and those that do ship a median of seven languages. The gap in revenue between the two groups is very large — but read that carefully, because the causation runs mostly the other way: apps localized into seven languages are apps that were already big enough to pay for seven languages of support, pricing and store copy.
The genuinely cheap part is the keyword field. Every localization you add is another 100 indexed characters for that storefront, and adding a localization for a market that already reads your English listing is close to free upside.
The expensive part is what most teams skip: localizing the content inside the screenshot frames, not just the caption above them. Names, currencies, dates, and which feature leads the set. A finance app leading with "Send money abroad" in one market may need "Split bills instantly" in another, and a translated caption over an untranslated screen reads as an afterthought.