South China Morning Post
Advertisement
Advertisement
Google
Get more with myNEWS
A personalised news feed of stories that matter to you
Learn more
Heavy winds and rain from Hurricane Irma are seen in Miami, Florida in September. The storm was the top trending Google search term in the US and globally in 2017. Photo: AFP
Tech

Update | Hongkongers spent the year Googling TV dramas while Singaporeans kept hunting for Pokemon

Hong Kong and Singapore had one thing in common with the rest of the world – anticipation over Apple’s latest iPhone models

Google
Zen Soo
Zen Soo
Why you can trust SCMP

While Hongkongers eagerly Googled a popular local television drama about a taxi driver with supernatural abilities, Singaporeans were concerned with just one thing – where they could catch Pokemon.

According to Google’s Year in Search 2017 report, the top trending search for Singapore was “Sgpokemap”, a real-time map for Pokemon Go players in Singapore which gives exact locations of where users can capture different Pokemon.

For the uninitiated, Pokemon Go is a location-based mobile game that amassed hundreds of millions of downloads and became the most popular mobile app globally in 2016.

However, it lost a third of its users within a month of being launched in July 2016, although the popularity wane did not seem to have come from Singapore – “Sgpokemap” was an active search term throughout much of 2017.

In Hong Kong, the top search was for TVB’s The Exorcist’s Meter, a horror-comedy about a taxi driver, played by Kenneth Ma, who accidentally acquires the ability to see the supernatural and goes about conquering demons and falling in love in the process.

My Unfair Lady, a romantic comedy series by TVB with its plot centred around the love lives of three unmarried women, ranked third in Hong Kong’s trending searches. OCTB 2017, a web drama about a police officer who goes undercover one last time, was fifth.

Performers dressed as the Pokemon Go virtual reality game mascot Pikachu prepare to take part in a parade during a promotional event in Singapore on November 18, 2016. Photo: AFP
In the Lion City, Singaporeans appeared to be equally taken with entertainment, avidly Googling movies including Wonder Woman and Beauty and the Beast, which came in fourth and fifth respectively, for the top trending searches of the year in their city.

Both Hong Kong and Singapore had one thing in common with the rest of the world – anticipation for Apple’s latest iPhone models. The search terms for “iPhone 8” and “iPhone X” ranked within the top 5 trending searches in both cities, as well as for global searches.

In the US and globally, the top trending search was for Hurricane Irma, which devastated much of the Caribbean and Florida in September.

Disgraced television journalist Matt Lauer, who was fired from NBC News in the US following complaints of “inappropriate sexual behaviour”, as well as the Las Vegas mass shooting in October, were also among the top five searches in the US this year. Other popular searches included the Super Bowl and Tom Petty, a rock icon who passed away in October.

Globally, people also searched for Meghan Markle, a popular American actress who played Rachel Zane on legal drama Suits. Markle became engaged to British royal Prince Harry last month after the coupled dated for over a year, and she will reportedly become a UK citizen following the marriage.

This article appeared in the South China Morning Post print edition as: Pokemon big in Singapore as HK googles TV shows
Post