app with installs but no interactions. (China fake installs)

Thanks, jpdev001

Please do report back. I plan to do similar tests but just haven't got around to it yet. Yesterday we had 127 downloads from China, but no activity shown. That really hurts the potential revenue from ads that these downloads would generate. It is a free app, so why would it need to be sold underground anyway? Looking back, since last October, my Unity analytics shows only 5 new users from China. However, the App Store shows over 1000 downloads from China. Very frustrating.

Could they be downloading but unable to start the app? That doesn't make sense either as my translator could download it just fine. He even discovered a bug for me.

Edit: When I look at iTunes Connect analytics from China it shows 0 installs. The mass of installs only shows on Sales and Trends. So why is this a discrepancy?

Same here too.

A game I released almost exactly a year ago had very few downloads. Over the last two months I have seen a slight increase in downloads, 1 or 2, maybe up to 5 per day, all from China.

All of a sudden in the last week I have seen 50, 80, and yesterday it peaked at 123 downloads.

I should also mention, this is a free game, with AdMob adverts. There is an occasional single unit of a USA download mixed in - but mostly ALL from China.

Either the people who download the game aren't actually playing it at all (not one single ad show in China) or AdMob just doesn't work in China ???

Not only that but the opt in analytics shows very little plays.

Either way - I've had about 500 downloads in the last week compared to ~300 in the entire previous year.

There is an IAP to upgrade the game and remove ads, needless to say, not one single user has paid.

A very strange situation. I wish I knew what was driving the Chinese downloads but I can't find anything pointing to my game ?!

Also iTunes Connect seems to say they are coming from store browsing ?!

curiouser and curiouser ...

I was also thinking of trying the 'make it paid' experiment.. but I am 99% sure that would immediately kill all downloads !

What is worse ? zero downloads of a paid app or hundreds of downloads of a free app that no one seems to actually play ?

I have had the same issue with a sticker pack that I created, I started to have an increased amount of downloads on August 17th, but being that it is stickers I didnt really want to pay for a website so I just created a facebook account to allow for social interaction of the stickers, I have noticed that from facebook I am getting views of the facebook sticker page, which leads me to believe that the free app has possibly been downloaded.

I don't believe these are real users/downloads.Why? I have a 400-800% increase in downloads, yet zero to few page impressions or app activity. It smells like an iTunes Connect or App Store foul-up to me.

Since all these China "downloads" generate exactly $0 (from my in-app purchase), I have no problems temporarily removing it from the store. This B.S. is really reaking havok on my metrics! 😠

Update:

Just realized that a couple of my apps are Apple TV 4 only, so obviously these are phony downloads since Apple TV is not sold in China!

Waiting to see if removing all apps from China will solve the issue...

Hello, same here too. A week ago my free app starts growing dowloading from China. Someone has change the price app in other to test if dowdloads stops from China. Any recommendations?

Update: After removing all apps from the China App Store, downloads appear to be leveling off to previous volumes.

Again, no signs any real users from China were actually downloading/using these apps. Some sort of hacking with the App Store system going on I'd guess....

I've removed my app from sale in China for the past day and a half and its still getting downloads. Yesterday it was 63. It is strange that the numbers very from day to day. Anyway, I will keep looking at it to see if it decreases to 0. Perhaps it takes a while for the data to flush out of the system.

I can confirm that disabling China from the list of approved territories stops the downloads. We were seeing thousands of downloads from China across our suite of apps, which was skewing our metrics. We believed the downloads to be bots and feared the potential ASO penalties that come as a result. It took a while, but we went through and disabled China for over 90 apps. If you do disable China, give it 48 hours to really set in.

I've disable China as well and we'll see if the downloads stop.

What exactly is the ASO penalties in which you speak of?

What would be the motive for people getting bots to download our apps? Would it be a competitor and this somehow gives them an advantage?

Can we get these fake downloads removed?

Same here. Will we have any answers from apple developers?

Another thread about the same problem https://stackoverflow.com/questions/45887706/sudden-strange-spike-in-app-downloads-from-china-on-itunesconnect

+1 disabling China from the list stops fake downloads

Same thing I'm experiencing. Free app (for a church no less).

I've been back and for with App support and they deny anything is wrong, or that there even is a problem.

I've sent them the numbers, where is is impossible for these to add up, yet they deny anything is wrong.

I'm pretty disappointed in their support on this one.

My Analytics for the last 30 days shows:

597 units downloaded

3 active devices

33 sessions

157 impressions.

157 users view the app store listing and they downloaded almost 600 units!! I don't believe that is at all accurate.

The server side activity doesn't reflect any change for this number of potential new users.

I just pulled it from the China app store.

I pulled my app from the China store a few days ago but the downloads have not stopped yet. There is 513 total this week and 0 activity from these downloads. I use Unity analytics and that even shows 0 activity from China. As mentioned I know Unity analytics works because my translator friend who lives in China downloaded the app and was able to watch ads and his activity shows on Unity analytics.

I would agree that that is an impossibility. So, when you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth 🙂