What Hong Kong looked up on Google: Pokemon’s Pikachu more popular than Donald Trump

Pikachu has done something that Hillary Clinton and 16 Republican candidates couldn’t: win against Donald Trump.

Google’s top searches - released by the company on Wednesday and compiled from searches on mobile and desktop - show Hongkongers had politics and entertainment on the brain in 2016. But it seems searching for Pikachu and friends in Nintendo’s smash-hit smartphone game was foremost in their thoughts.

Pokemon Go was the most searched keyword on Google by internet users with Hong Kong IP addresses this year, beating other popular queries including Apple’s latest smartphone, local politics and the US presidential election.

Pikachu, Eevee and Zubat weren’t just popular in Hong Kong - Pokemon Go was the most searched keyword of the year globally, with iPhone 7, Donald Trump and the late singer Prince coming in second, third and fourth place.

This was broadly in line with the top 10 global moments on Facebook, where US Elections, Brazilian politics, Pokemon Go, Black Lives Matter and Rodrigo Duterte took out the top five spots.

The top trending local topics for Hong Kong were dominated by politics, with Legislative Council Election taking out the top spot while disqualified pro-independence lawmaker Yau Wai-ching was the top trending local person in current affairs.