Localizing your app listing into Arabic

Storefronts and localization names read from Apple’s App Store localizations reference; language codes and field limits from Google Play’s translation language list and each store’s field reference. Checked August 29, 2026.

Arabic is the additional supported language in sixteen App Store storefronts across the Middle East and North Africa — and the default language of none of them, because those storefronts default to English (U.K.). Adding Arabic is the single change that makes your listing native across that whole region.

Arabic characters are two bytes in UTF-8, leaving about 50 characters of keyword field.

Where a Arabic listing appears

Apple publishes the default language of all 173 App Store storefronts, and Arabic is the default in none of them — it is an additional supported language in 16. Those markets see English unless you add the Arabic localization yourself.

Additionally supported in

What you translate, and what it costs you

Both stores cap the same fields, and neither cap changes by language — but the amount of meaning you fit inside them does. Apple’s keyword field is the one that surprises people: it is measured in bytes, so Arabic at about 2 bytes per character leaves roughly 50 characters. Google Play counts characters instead, and says so explicitly: its limits “apply to both full-width and half-width characters”.

The screenshots are part of the localization

Both stores let you upload a separate screenshot set per localization, and in practice the captions are what sells — a translated description under English screenshots converts like an English listing. Design the frames once, then export the same layout per language rather than rebuilding it: that is the difference between localizing into Arabic in an afternoon and not doing it at all.