Search engine and tech giant Google announced on Wednesday the results of its annual Year in Search, which analyses search data to reveal the top trending searches of the year.
The search data offer an insight into Hong Kong’s collective curiosity, revealing the year’s most searched-for moments, events, local and international stories, people, gadgets, movies, stock codes and more.
This year, data from mobile searches have been incorporated into the findings to better represent the territory’s high smartphone penetration rate: Google’s Consumer Barometer shows that 79 percent of Hongkongers now use a smartphone.
Incidentally, the term ‘iPhone 6s’ ranks first on the list of the top ten trending search keywords this year.
The website How-Old.net, which uses photographs to estimate one’s age, ranked as the second most searched-for keyword of 2015.
Third on the list is Helen To Yu Fung, the infamously candid TV host from Seoul Searching and Helen TO-KYO! To was the only individual to make it into the general category of top ten search terms.
Behind her was historical drama Empress of China—censored in the mainland due to the cleavage-heavy Tang Dynasty dress worn by star Fan Bingbing—animated film Minions and cantopop hit Rashomon.
The top trending international topics were MERS, the Tianjin chemical blasts, the Greek Bailout Referendum, and ISIS. Major local topics were HSBC’s 150th Anniversary, iBond, and last month’s district council elections.
The most searched-for person in 2015 in the ‘Top Trending People in Current Affairs’ list was Chai Yan Leung, daughter of Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying, who shot to headlines most recently after she was filmed slapping her mother in Lan Kwai Fong on Halloween night. The top trending international person was Singapore’s founding prime minister Lee Kuan Yew, who died in March, followed by Floyd Mayweather and Caitlyn Jenner.
The ‘Top Trending Places for Food on Mobile Search’ list was topped by dessert chain Hui Lau Shan. Also on the list were Calf Bone King, Lady M, Delifrance and Michelin-starred dimsum joint Tim Ho Wan.
Popular Taiwanese film Our Times was the top trending movie of 2015, while nineties TV show The Greed of Man was the top trending TV show.
Tsim Sha Tsui’s Harbour City shopping mall beat the Peak Tram as the top trending local destination through mobile searches, while De Novo became the highest trending new property estate as well as a top trending local topic.
The most searched-for words and terms Hongkongers asked Google Search to help them translate into English were ‘Year of the Sheep/Goat/Ram’, ‘parallel goods trader’ and actress and Japanese porn star Yui Hatano.
