Top tech Google searches in 2013 honed in on smartphones, gaming

With December already midway done, every tech company with a morsel of user data at its disposal is trotting out year-end lists.

Given that it might be the world's leader in accumulating user data (if not for Amazon, Apple, Microsoft and a few others to give it a run for its money), Google has its own top 10 list from 2013 stemming from the primary money maker: search.

Dubbed the annual "Year-End Zeitgeist" (or “spirit of the times”), the top 10 most frequently used Google search phrases worldwide this year revolved around politics, entertainment, and technology.

Naturally, the "Royal Baby" was in there too.

As far as technology goes, it appears Internet users have some fine tuned interests. For starters, one could narrow down the results into two sub-categories: smartphones and gaming consoles.

From there, one could extract an ongoing debate between iOS and Android given that the iPhone 5s came in third, while the Samsung Galaxy S4 came in eighth.

Sony's PlayStation 4, which on the surface at least drew as many crowds and lines on the launch day as the latest smartphone from Apple, followed in ninth place.

Some late-breaking news items also seemed to have affected results at the eleventh hour. Actor Paul Walker, who died in a tragic car accident just over a week ago, came in second -- only behind former South African president Nelson Mandela, the #1 trending search of 2013.

Here's a glance at the full top 10 list, covering categories like Trending People, Most-Searched Events and Top Trending Searches from 72 countries:

1. Nelson Mandela
2. Paul Walker
3. iPhone 5s
4. Cory Monteith
5. Harlem Shake
6. Boston Marathon
7. Royal Baby
8. Samsung Galaxy s4
9. PlayStation 4
10. North Korea

For a closer look at Google's 2013 Zeitgeist, check out the promo clip below: