Downloads spiking in China

General (non-technical) Marketing and Monetization
#1

My three games combined have been getting negligible downloads since release months ago - like 5 a day total.  Then starting on August 16th, 11, 52, 113, 128, to 189 yesterday.    Almost all in China.

I realize that’s still not a lot of downloads, but I’ve done zero marketing lately, only ever did a few tweets on an account that doesn’t have many followers, and I have a pitiful web site with no SEO.   

What gives?   I mean, I like my games and all, but just seems odd to build like this completely out of the blue.

#2

I’ve seen others report this recently. And starting about the same day, I saw a similar spike in my apps, which had negligible downloads  (under 10 per day) and now they are up in the 80-100 range as well with a significant amount in China.

I don’t know if anyone has figured it out yet.

Rob

#3

Yup - experienced this on and off over the last year or so. Can’t monetize - so I view them as vanity downloads. No corresponding increase in bootups (Chartboost portal) or IAP or ad revenue. Pretty sad really…

This week my app doanlaods have increased 10 x compared to normal figures - mostly China - and to a lesser extent - Japan.

#4

I’ll add my voice to this.  My two games have been more or less dead for weeks and both have had downloads shoot up to 10s per day (a BIG deal for me) almost all in China over the past week or so.  They aren’t showing up in my analytics at all though so it looks like they’ve been downloaded and ignored.  What causes this - I don’t understand how anyone benefits from this?

#5

Firstly, if you’re into iOS ASO like I do, you’ll notice spikes which last for days and even weeks until the algorithm is changed/updated again. The most recent one i have detected was on 18th Aug. 

With the recent change, installs spiked in China again and it was about 230% increase compared to the previous week. However, Google Analytics is not showing any increase in user or sessions. This is also equally supported by Apple’s own App Analytics. So, spiking installs, but no increase in active users/sessions and we’re talking about 20K+new installs. 

There is no seasonal factor as the next major holiday in China is in October. I am beginning to think these installs aren’t even real. 

#6

Peaked at 423 three days ago, down to 216 yesterday.   Still nobody launching, just downloading.   

#7

Same here, installs from China spiked last Friday and it was up another 68% compared to Thursday. Lasted until Saturday. 

#8

More here…

http://iphonedevsdk.com/forum/business-legal-app-store/123637-a-lot-of-downloads-from-china.html

#9

Makes sense…

“I suspect it is some sort of fraudulent activity to manipulate rankings for other apps, they just download some other random apps to make it seem like they are legit users.”

#10

Same happened to me.

It started in 16. of August, I get 4x-10x more downloads from China, all was without any actions.

I have two accounts and in both accounts 90% of games received those fake downloads.

It was big problem for me, as I am selling my apps and I need real stats, not inflated or incorrect data.

Then I wrote to Apple support 3 or 4 times about this issue, and every time answer was something like “our engineers is doing all they can, but we can’t provide resolution at the moment nor any information on how to solve it.”

But two days ago it stopped! I am receiving normal amount of downloads again in both accounts!

I don’t know if Apple solved it and I will never know what caused it. Apple is not giving any info of course.

So I received about 100k fake downloads in these 5-6weeks.

#11

Back to normal the past couple of days, down to nil.

#12

+1, downloads seemed normal from last Saturday…

#13

My downloads had returned to normal as well, but both my games had a weird Chinese download spike yesterday, so we could be in for a re-run!

#14

I’ve seen others report this recently. And starting about the same day, I saw a similar spike in my apps, which had negligible downloads  (under 10 per day) and now they are up in the 80-100 range as well with a significant amount in China.

I don’t know if anyone has figured it out yet.

Rob

#15

Yup - experienced this on and off over the last year or so. Can’t monetize - so I view them as vanity downloads. No corresponding increase in bootups (Chartboost portal) or IAP or ad revenue. Pretty sad really…

This week my app doanlaods have increased 10 x compared to normal figures - mostly China - and to a lesser extent - Japan.

#16

I’ll add my voice to this.  My two games have been more or less dead for weeks and both have had downloads shoot up to 10s per day (a BIG deal for me) almost all in China over the past week or so.  They aren’t showing up in my analytics at all though so it looks like they’ve been downloaded and ignored.  What causes this - I don’t understand how anyone benefits from this?

#17

Firstly, if you’re into iOS ASO like I do, you’ll notice spikes which last for days and even weeks until the algorithm is changed/updated again. The most recent one i have detected was on 18th Aug. 

With the recent change, installs spiked in China again and it was about 230% increase compared to the previous week. However, Google Analytics is not showing any increase in user or sessions. This is also equally supported by Apple’s own App Analytics. So, spiking installs, but no increase in active users/sessions and we’re talking about 20K+new installs. 

There is no seasonal factor as the next major holiday in China is in October. I am beginning to think these installs aren’t even real. 

#18

Peaked at 423 three days ago, down to 216 yesterday.   Still nobody launching, just downloading.   

#19

Same here, installs from China spiked last Friday and it was up another 68% compared to Thursday. Lasted until Saturday. 

#20

More here…

http://iphonedevsdk.com/forum/business-legal-app-store/123637-a-lot-of-downloads-from-china.html