What the rating counts: an average and the ratings behind it

A rating on a store page is an average and a count together. On 6 November 2026 this desk read both on 3 listings in the Philippines and the split by star underneath. The table below is the reading; the text explains how to take it apart.

The rating figures and the stars

Average, number of ratings and the count and share for each number of stars. Pages read here: the FxPro app and FxPro cTrader in the Philippines.

An average with a count under it

A rating on a store page is two numbers glued together: an average and a count. The first is what people look at; the second tells you how much weight the first can bear. On 6 November 2026 this desk read both on 2 listings and found no star rating on FxPro Global: Trading Broker in this country view. FxPro: Trading & Investing (Google Play): 4.5 from 104,041 ratings. FxPro cTrader (Google Play): 4.5 from 3,217 ratings.

Two figures on one Google Play page

On the Google Play page of FxPro: Trading & Investing the header shows 4.5 stars (4.500 before rounding) and, in the “Ratings and reviews” block lower on the page, 4.5 (4.510) with 102,446 ratings; the header's count is 104,041, a difference of 1,595. On the Google Play page of FxPro cTrader the header shows 4.5 stars (4.525 before rounding) and, in the “Ratings and reviews” block lower on the page, 4.5 (4.500) with 2,996 ratings; the header's count is 3,217, a difference of 221.

The page prints both and does not explain the difference, which is why the table prints both rows for each Play listing and does not choose between them. The rounding is part of what you see: two honest roundings of numbers a few thousandths of a star apart can read differently.

The same count, split by star

The split in the table is worked out from the counts the page gives. FxPro: Trading & Investing (Google Play): 76,722 of 101,997 are five-star (75%), 13,197 four-star (13%), 4,026 three-star (4%), 4,026 two-star (4%) and 4,026 one-star (4%); FxPro cTrader (Google Play): 2,236 of 2,910 are five-star (77%), 295 four-star (10%), 253 three-star (9%), 0 two-star (0%) and 126 one-star (4%).

An average hides a shape. Two listings can both read 4.4 with a very different distribution, one with nearly all ratings at five and one with many at five and a visible block at one. The split is the part of the page that shows the difference.

Why the count matters more than it seems

4.5 from 3,217 ratings (FxPro cTrader, Google Play) and 4.5 from 104,041 (FxPro: Trading & Investing, Google Play) are written the same way and carry very different weight. With 3,217 ratings a single new rating moves the average by at most 0.00155 of a star (five divided by the count); with 104,041 it moves by at most 0.00004806.

That is arithmetic, not a view on the apps. A small count can swing from one reading to the next, and a rating built on hundreds of thousands of ratings is stable by comparison. It is also the reason this site prints the date beside every rating: a rating is a moving number, and a figure without its date is half a figure.

A listing without a star rating

The Google Play page of FxPro Global: Trading Broker shows no star rating in the Philippines view on 6 November 2026: the line where the rating sits carries the label Rated for 18+ instead, and the page gives a download bracket of 100K+. The same package showed a star rating in the India, South Africa and Turkey views when it was read there on the same day, so the absence is a fact about this country view and not a statement about the app.

This site does not supply a figure the page does not show. It prints “no rating shown on the page” in the table and moves on.

A worked example of how firm an average is

Take the average a page shows, multiply by the count, add new ratings and divide again; that is all an average is. Worked through for each page that shows a rating: FxPro: Trading & Investing (Google Play), average 4.500 over 104,041 ratings: about 3,060 new one-star ratings in a row would be needed to pull the average down by a tenth of a star; FxPro cTrader (Google Play), average 4.525 over 3,217 ratings: about 94 new one-star ratings in a row would be needed to pull the average down by a tenth of a star.

The figures are a calculation on the page's numbers, not a forecast of what will happen. They show why a rating built on a large count is slow to move, and why the same one-star rating that is invisible on a listing with many ratings is large on one with few.

The words on a rating line

Four words recur on the rating line of a store page and are easy to mix up. A rating is one star score given by one person. A review is a rating with text written next to it. The average is the sum of the ratings divided by their number. The count is the number of ratings the average is taken over; Play prints it in a short form such as “104K reviews”, which this site reads as the exact figure the page's data carries. On the App Store the count is called “Ratings” and the page prints it in full.

Different stores, different populations

The Play figures and the App Store figures are not a single survey. They are collected by two companies from two groups of phone owners, and the pages show the apps under their own developer names. Setting the averages side by side is allowed; subtracting one from the other to say which app is better is not, because nothing on the pages says that they rate the same product. The Play page also carries the label “Ratings and reviews are verified”. This site repeats the label as the page words it and has not tested it.

What this page leaves out

The store pages also show reviews: people's own words, with their names. This site does not copy them. They are other people's writing, they change by the hour and a handful chosen by a store's ordering is not a sample. The captured pictures on this site have the review cards hidden for the same reason and say so.

What remains is the part of a rating that can be recomputed: an average, a count and five bars.