# An AR tracing app got 36k installs in a week with zero ratings: a Vietnam-account test of a new package

> Source: https://stringers.io/en/apps/play_com.ardraw.traceart.sketch.anime.paint.html (Stringers / 什么值得做, generated 2026-11-08)
> Stringers answers one question every day: what small product can one or two people build in a few months and actually make money from. Numbers come from 15 databases we collect daily, each with source and date.
> For agents: these verdicts and the underlying databases (verified revenue, App Store / Google Play charts, ad libraries, GitHub, Product Hunt…) are queryable live over MCP — tools today / hot / products / directions / direction / data. Setup: https://github.com/komako-workshop/stringers (the user logs in at stringers.io → "配置 agent" to get a personal URL). Site index: https://stringers.io/llms.txt

> It's most likely the account running install ads in cheap markets like Vietnam, India and Mexico. Two new apps picked up volume the same week, and the low bar in small-country Arts charts is giving them some extra exposure. 37k installs and 0 ratings, daily installs down from over 8 thousand to 1.5 thousand.

[Mobile App](https://stringers.io/en/apps/index.md) · Android · written 11-6

AR Draw: Trace Art & Sketch · Mintexecto

# An AR tracing app got 36k installs in a week with zero ratings: a Vietnam-account test of a new package

**What it is** An Android AR tracing app: the phone camera overlays a template or photo onto paper, and you trace it by hand. It makes money from ads plus in-app purchases.

**Why it took off** Most likely, install ads were run from accounts in cheap countries like Vietnam, India, and Mexico, with two new packages ramping up in the same week, plus low-bar exposure from the small-country art category charts. 37k installs and 0 ratings; daily installs have already slid from 8 thousand to 1.5 thousand.

**C** **How you could follow** Don't build another reskinned tracing app. Either copy its pipeline of "multiple packages tested at once, cheap-country paid acquisition, and pushing into small-country category charts," or do what the category generally hasn't: a one-time purchase, no ads, kid version with parental lock.

C grade: real demand, but the top players are Vietnamese studio networks with tens of millions of installs. This one has no differentiation and is only a paid-acquisition test for now. The lesson is their new-app test pipeline; following this single app isn't worth it. Almost nobody knows about it yet

Data (updated daily) · first launch 2026-10-15 · 11-07 installs 37,088

Android · Total installs worldwide

Data 2026-10-29 → 2026-11-07 (10 days, 10 observations). Google's detail page only refreshes install counts every other day, so a flat day doesn't mean nobody installed.

Oct 30, a Google Play developer account called Mintexecto sent a 1.0.2 update to "AR Draw: Trace Art & Sketch", which had launched two weeks earlier. Before that it was getting a few installs a day, 1,027 total. In the week after, the total rose to 37,088, and it entered the Art & Design free chart in 17 countries. Another filter app from the same account also charted that week. This isn't a product suddenly being discovered. One account is testing two new apps at once in low-cost countries. The category is genuinely big, but there's nothing about this app to copy. What's worth learning is their pipeline.

### What it is

You prop your phone above a sheet of paper, open the camera, and the app overlays a semi-transparent image on the screen. You trace the lines on the paper. Images can be picked from the app's template library (anime, cute, animals, holidays) or imported from your photos, then converted to line art in one of four modes: Default / Detail / Outline / Clean. There's also text art and saving your artwork.

The store listing says "a simple and friendly drawing app for beginners", and throughout it uses terms like ar drawing, trace drawing, sketch, anime, how to draw, photo to sketch. The package name is `ardraw.traceart.sketch.anime.paint`. It has ads and in-app purchases, with individual items priced from $5.99 to $29.99 (Google Play store listing, 11-06).

The developer page lists only three apps: this one, a time-warp filter app called "Time Warp Scan: Filter Funny", and a small game. The privacy policy is a public Google Doc and the website is on blogspot. It looks like a personal account. From the outside, you can't tell whether it's a front for a Vietnamese studio (inference).

### How it grew

Publicly visible cumulative installs on Google Play (10-29 to 11-06):

| Date | Total installs | New installs in this period |
|---|---|---|
| 10-29 | 1,027 | — |
| 10-31 | 7,145 | +6,118 |
| 11-02 | 23,969 | +16,824 (in two days) |
| 11-03 | 32,547 | +8,578 |
| 11-06 | 37,088 | +4,541 (three days) |

The daily numbers from the third-party tool AppstoreSpy make it clearer: from Oct 27 to 29 it averaged about 3 installs a day. On Oct 30 it suddenly jumped to over 6 thousand, then from 31 through Nov 3 it ran at 4.6 to 8.6 thousand a day. After Nov 4 it fell back to around 1.5 thousand a day.

A few details, taken together:

- **The surge began the same day a new version shipped.** It went from single digits a day to thousands, with no content or press to set it up.

- **37k installs and not a single rating.** Organic users almost always leave ratings. Bought traffic often looks like this.

- **The surge countries are all cheap ones.** Vietnam, India, Indonesia, the Philippines, Nigeria, Mexico, Turkey. In Nov 6 it ranked #22 in the Vietnam Art category free chart, #56 in Turkey, #71 in Saudi Arabia, #75 in Mexico, and #83 in India. Its European rankings were actually falling: France dropped from #30 to #134, and Germany from #62 to #148.

- **The account's other app spiked the same week.** Time Warp Scan launched Oct 12, added over 7.7 thousand in one day on Oct 31, gained 19k more in Nov 3, and reached 30,734 total installs by Nov 6. Again, no ratings.

So the most likely explanation is that the account ran a round of app install ads (probably Google App campaigns) across two new apps in different categories, to see which performed better (inference; I couldn't find it in the public ad libraries of Meta, Google, or TikTok, but those libraries have incomplete coverage, so not finding it doesn't mean it wasn't running). Whether the drop after Nov 4 means it was stopped or the bids were adjusted can't be told yet.

### Where users come from

- **Paid acquisition** , see the previous section, is the main source (inference).

- **Store search.** AR tracing has steady search volume on Google Play, and the title, description, and package name are stuffed with the hot keywords, so the new app picks up a bit of that traffic.

- **Small-country category charts.** The Art & Design category has a low bar in Vietnam, Turkey, and Saudi Arabia. In Oct 29 it had only 1,027 installs and already ranked #42 in Vietnam. Charting brought a bit more exposure.

- **TikTok, X, press: none.** Searching the app name on TikTok doesn't turn up its own account, and no creators mention it. On X, zero posts in the last 30 days.

### The demand is real, and it's big

People have always wanted to trace drawings: those who want to draw but can't, many of them teens and anime fans. Trace a picture with the camera and in half an hour you have something you can post. According to Google Play data, there are 83 art apps with AR draw or trace in the name, and together they gained about 5.82M installs in the last 7 days. Of these, 18 were launched after July 2026 (11-06).

Reviews of similar apps show who the users are and what annoys them. A few from late October:

> "I wanted to draw on a canvas bag and then color it in, and it helped a lot." (AR Drawing: Sketch & Paint, Philippines, 10-24,5 stars)

> "I just wanted to upload one of my own pictures and it wants me to pay. I just want to draw." (same app, 10-22,1 stars)

> "Can I get a refund? That's my mom's money, not mine, and I need it for school 😭" (ARtie Lab, Australia, 10-25,1 stars)

> "Cool concept, just not very friendly to left-handed people 🥲" (AR Drawing: Sketch & Paint, 10-25,3 stars)

Many users are kids who want to use their own photos, and they hit a paywall or a screen full of ads right away. That's the category's common problem.

### Who it's competing with

This category was already well worked by Vietnamese studios. The leaders (Google Play cumulative installs, 11-06):

| Product | Developer | Launched | Total installs | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Artrace: AR Easy Draw & Sketch | Braly (Vietnam) | 2024-06 | 64.8M | 7 days +890k |
| AR Drawing: Sketch & Paint | AR Drawing | 2023-06 | 37.1M | Has a website, on both platforms |
| Draw Easy AI: AR Trace Sketch | Kraph Tech | 2022-12 | 31.5M | Has AI line art |
| Draw Cartoon – AR Sketch | Braly | 2025-01 | 24.6M |  |
| Artmate: Drawing Together | Braly | 2026-09 | 19.5M | Launched less than two months earlier, #1 in the UK Art category; added a "draw together" feature |
| Sketch Photo: Learn to Draw | APSOFT HKT | 2026-01 | 19M | Focused on converting photos to line art |
| Draw Anime – AR Drawing Sketch | LOGICLABS | 2025-10 | 6.63M |  |
| **AR Draw: Trace Art & Sketch (this one)** | Mintexecto | 2026-10 | 37k |  |

It is two to three orders of magnitude smaller than the leaders, and there's no feature it has that others don't. Launching around the same time is Draw Anime Sketch & Trace (13,49k installs), another new app doing the same thing at the same time.

### Where the money comes from

Interstitial and rewarded ads, plus in-app purchases. Third-party estimates suggest most apps in this category earn under $5k a month from in-app purchases, with money coming mainly from ads. This one has never charted on any top-grossing list, and no revenue or retention data is public.

### If it were you

**The verdict** : don't build an AR tracing app like this one. The category demand is real, but the leaders are a network of Vietnamese studios with tens of millions of installs, and this app is itself a new test app that hasn't shown it can retain users organically. What's worth learning is the pipeline behind it: "reskin the template, test several apps at once, buy installs in cheap countries, push for small-country category charts."

**Who it suits** : small teams that already have an ad-monetized utility app codebase and can run Google App campaigns. They'd use the move of "test two or three new apps from different categories in the same week under one account, then scale up whichever performs better" on their own product line.

**Who it doesn't suit** : indie developers who want to build a tracing app from scratch and make a living from it. The features can be copied in a week, but you can't beat the cost per install and creative output of a studio like Braly, which launches a dozen-plus apps at once.

**How to do it** : if you really want to go after this category, build the parts most apps handle poorly, not another reskin. The same complaints keep coming up in reviews: paying to upload your own photo, too many ads, subscriptions you can't cancel, kids spending their parents' money. You could build a parent-friendly version: one-time purchase, no interstitials, a parental lock, aimed at parents who want their kids to learn to draw. Or go after specific use cases like left-handed mode, canvas bags, and wall murals.

**How to get users** : run Google app install campaigns first in cheap countries like Vietnam, India, Mexico, and Turkey to build install volume, and use the low bar of the Art category charts in small countries for extra exposure. If you go the parent route, post process videos on TikTok ("my kid traced a whole drawing in half an hour"). This app has done nothing on that front.

**When is "before" for this** : the category won't close, and there's no window to speak of. It has always been crowded. A new app only gets the bonus of cold-start exposure and small-country charts in the first few weeks after launch.

**What would mean I've misread it** : (1) By December its cumulative installs are still climbing by thousands a day, and it starts getting ratings and reviews. That would mean the bought users are sticking, and small-account new apps are stronger than they look. (2) The opposite: if both Time Warp Scan and this app drop to a few hundred new installs a day and stop getting updates, it was a single test that got shelved afterward. Then the bar for newcomers in this category is higher than it looks.

[Android store page ↗](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.ardraw.traceart.sketch.anime.paint)

**Research notes: competitor table, acquisition evidence, full research report**

Competitors

| Name | Where | Launched | Scale | How it differs from this one |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Artrace: AR Easy Draw & Sketch(Braly JSC) | Android | 2024-06 | 64.8M installs, +890k in 7 days | Almost identical features. Braly is a top Vietnamese studio two orders of magnitude larger, with IP character templates and a network of many apps. |
| Artmate: Drawing Together(Braly JSC) | Android | 2026-09-15 | 19.5M installs, #1 in UK Art | Added a social "draw together" mode. Much bigger in scale. |
| AR Drawing: Sketch & Paint | Android | 2023-06 | 37.1M installs, has a website, also on iOS | Has a brand and website, on both platforms. This is just a small account. |
| Draw Easy AI: AR Trace Sketch(Kraph Tech) | Android | 2022-12 | 31.5M installs | An established app with AI line art. No functional difference. |
| Sketch Photo: Learn to Draw(APSOFT HKT) | Android | 2026-01 | 19M installs | Also focused on photo-to-line-art. Reached the ten-million range within a year of launch. |
| Sketchar | Android | 2017-05 | 7.11M installs | An early AR drawing product, with tutorials and a community. |
| ArtEasy / PicTrace, etc. | iOS | 2025–2026 | Not verified | Runs its own TikTok promo videos. Can't find it on TikTok. |

Where users come from

- Inference **Paid acquisition (likely Google UAC, low-CPI countries)** : 10-30 launched 1.0.2 and started gaining installs the same day, with daily installs jumping from single digits to thousands. 37k installs with 0 ratings. Surge countries concentrated in Vietnam, India, Indonesia, the Philippines, Nigeria, Mexico, and Turkey. The account's Time Warp Scan also spiked that week (10-31 +7.7k, 11-03 +19k). Not found in three ad libraries, but it is not on the adwatch list.

- Inference **Store search ASO** : title, description, and package name stuffed with category keywords such as ar drawing, trace, sketch, anime, and photo to sketch. The category gained about 5.8M installs over 7 days, with steady search volume.

- **Confirmed** **Play category charts and new-app exposure** : 10-29 entered 12 countries' Art category charts (#42 in Vietnam) with only 1,027 installs, showing the small-country category charts have a low bar.

- Inference **TikTok, X, press** : TikHub search by app name finds no account or creator videos for it; x-radar shows 0 posts in the last 30 days; no press coverage.

## AR Draw: Trace Art & Sketch (Mintexecto): why it charted

> Google Play, package name `com.ardraw.traceart.sketch.anime.paint`, Art & Design category. Research date 2026-11-06.

### Bottom line

It's not a new category or a new mechanic. It's another template reskin in the AR tracing category, a category that Vietnamese studios have long saturated. The developer account looks like a personal side account (email phattrancamquan@gmail.com, website on blogspot). The surge looks like a Google app promotion campaign (UAC) or other paid acquisition run across several apps under the same account, plus Play's cold-start exposure for new apps, which pushed it onto the Art category free charts in cheap countries like Vietnam, Turkey, Mexico, and India. With 37k installs and not a single rating, and daily installs falling from 8.5k to 1.5k, it's still just a paid-acquisition test with no evidence yet that it has taken off organically.

### What it is

Hold a semi-transparent template or photo over paper with your phone camera, then trace it. Selling points: template library (anime, cute, animals, holidays), photo-to-line-art in four modes (Default/Detail/Outline/Clean), text art, save your works. Has ads and in-app purchases, $5.99–$29.99 per item (googleplay library app_snap). Description and features are nearly identical to the category leaders (Play store page, fetched via Jina 2026-11-06).

### Data (Google Play library, 2026-10-29 to 11-06)

| Date | Total installs | Daily increase | Version |
|---|---|---|---|
| 10-29 | 1,027 | – | 1.0.0 |
| 10-30 | 1,027 | 0 | 1.0.0 (updated 10-28) |
| 10-31 | 7,145 | +6,118 | 1.0.2 (updated 10-30) |
| 11-02 | 23,969 | +16,824 (in two days) | 1.0.2 |
| 11-03 | 32,547 | +8,578 | 1.0.2 |
| 11-06 | 37,088 | +4,541 (three days) | 1.0.2 |

- Daily installs estimated by AppstoreSpy (app_day_ext): from 10-27 to 10-29 about 3 installs a day, 10-30 jumped +6.1k, 10-31 to 11-03 ran 4.6k–8.6k a day, and 11-04 to 11-06 fell back to about 1.5k a day.

- Store listing date 2026-10-15. Rating has stayed empty; 37k installs, 0 ratings.

- Charts: it has only charted on the Art & Design category free chart, never on overall or Top Grossing. 10-29 charted in 12 countries (best was #42 in Vietnam), 11-01 charted in 19 countries, with France as its best at #30. Today it's in 17 countries: Vietnam #22, Turkey #56, Saudi Arabia #71, Mexico #75, India #83. European store ranks are sliding (France 30→134, Germany 62→148, Italy 49→146), while Vietnam, Turkey and Saudi Arabia are climbing.

- Another app from the same developer, "Time Warp Scan: Filter Funny" (listed 10-12), also showed stepped jumps in the same window: 10-31 +7.7k, 11-03 +19k, reaching 30,734 installs. Two apps ramping in the same week looks more like a coordinated account-level ad buy than one app getting lucky organically.

### Competitors: the category is already crowded

In the Art & Design category of the googleplay library, 83 apps have AR draw / trace in their name or package, with about 5.82M new installs combined in the last 7 days. 18 of them were listed after 2026-07 (in-library SQL, 2026-11-06). Leaders:

- **Artrace: AR Easy Draw & Sketch** (Braly JSC, Vietnam, 2024-06): 64.8M installs, +7k over 890 days, #2 in the Italy category chart.

- **Artmate: Drawing Together** (Braly JSC, 2026-09-15): 19.5M installs less than two months after listing, +7k over 640 days, #1 in the UK category chart.

- **AR Drawing: Sketch & Paint** (AR Drawing, 2023-06): 37.1M installs, with its own site at ar-drawing.com.

- **Draw Easy AI: AR Trace Sketch** (Kraph Tech, 2022-12): 31.5M installs.

- **Draw Cartoon – AR Sketch** (Braly, 2025-01): 24.6M installs; **Sketch Photo: Learn to Draw** (APSOFT HKT, 2026-01): 19M installs.

- **Draw Anime – AR Drawing Sketch** (LOGICLABS, 2025-10): 6.63M installs; **ArtHub: Trace & Draw** (Pixin, 2026-09): 920k installs.

- Newer entrants in the same niche: Draw Anime Sketch & Trace (AppStudioX, 2026-10-1.35M installs), AR Art Draw (Appollo, 2025-125M installs).

- Veteran AR drawing app: Sketchar (20.2B installs). On iOS there are also ArtEasy, PicTrace and others, running their own TikTok promo videos (found via TikHub search).

Next to these, its scale is two to three orders of magnitude smaller (37k versus millions to tens of millions). Nothing in its feature set looks unique.

### Growth channels

1. **Paid acquisition, most likely Google UAC (inferred, no direct evidence)** . Four reasons: first, installs jumped from single digits a day to several thousand on 10-30, the same day 1.0.2 was released; second, 37k installs with 0 ratings, which organic traffic rarely produces; third, the surge countries cluster in low-CPI markets like Vietnam, India, Indonesia, the Philippines, Nigeria, Mexico and Turkey; fourth, another app from the same account jumped the same week. Our Google, Meta and TikTok (Europe) ad libraries show no trace of Mintexecto or this package name. But it isn't on the adwatch list, so no hits doesn't mean no spend.

2. **Store search (ASO)** : the title and description are packed with category keywords (ar drawing, trace drawing, sketch, anime, how to draw, photo to sketch), and the package name follows the same pattern. AR tracing has steady search volume on Play, and a new package can pick up some organic installs from keywords. This is an inference.

3. **Play new-pack cold-start exposure and category charts** : the category Top Free chart ranks by recent velocity, and in small storefronts like Vietnam the bar is very low. 10-29 hit #42 in Vietnam with only 1,027 installs. Charting also brings a bit of extra exposure.

4. **Content and creators** : searching the app name on TikTok turns up no account of its own, and no creator mentions it. X (x-radar, last 30 days) has zero posts. No media coverage found.

### Why users come and whether they pay

- The demand is real and long-lasting: people who want to draw but can't (many teens and anime fans) trace from a camera image and get a finished result fast. The whole category adds about 5.8M new installs every 7 days.

- Monetization is interstitial and rewarded ads, plus in-app purchases and subscriptions ($5.99–$29.99). Comparable apps in the category, per AppGazers and Peekly estimates, mostly sit under $5k a month in in-app revenue, with ads doing most of the earning. This package has never charted on any top-grossing list.

- No retention or payment data, 0 rating, and no review samples.

### Differentiation

Almost none. The four-mode photo-to-line-art and text art also appear in Braly and Kraph products. It's running not because it's differentiated but because category demand is big, mature templates are ready to use, and paid acquisition is cheap, so a small account can push a new package onto a small-country category chart.

### How many people know about it

Still almost unknown. No public revenue, and no major media or X accounts have written about it. The developer's AppBrain page lists only 3 apps (the other two are Galaxy Circle, a mini game, and the Time Warp Scan filter).

### What to take from it

- The Vietnamese small-studio and solo-account pipeline: a reskin of a popular tool category, cheap paid installs in low-price countries, and several apps tested at once. The same account pushed two apps in different categories (AR drawing, a time-warp filter) in the same week, and scaled up whichever one performed.

- Category charts like Art & Design have a low bar in storefronts such as Vietnam, Turkey and Saudi Arabia, where a few thousand daily installs can chart. That makes them a useful amplifier for cold starts.

### Still unclear

- The real traffic source: no ad library evidence, so paid acquisition is an inference.

- Whether Mintexecto is a front for a Vietnamese studio (like Braly). Email and blogspot only show an individual account.

- Revenue, retention, and whether the drop from 1.5k/day reflects stopping spend or adjusting bids.

### Sources

- googleplay library (agent-im server, DuckDB): app, app_snap, app_day_ext (AppstoreSpy estimates), chart_rank, app_profile; query date 2026-11-06.

- metaads, googleads, tiktokads libraries: searched Mintexecto, ardraw, AR Draw; no results (2026-11-06).

- Play store page: [play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.ardraw.traceart.sk…](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.ardraw.traceart.sketch.anime.paint); developer page: [play.google.com/store/apps/developer?id=Mintexecto](https://play.google.com/store/apps/developer?id=Mintexecto)

- AppBrain developer page: [www.appbrain.com/dev/Mintexecto/](https://www.appbrain.com/dev/Mintexecto/); developer site: [mintexecto.blogspot.com/](https://mintexecto.blogspot.com/)

- Category revenue estimates: [appgazers.com/reports/apps/android-ar.drawing.paint.draw.ske…](https://appgazers.com/reports/apps/android-ar.drawing.paint.draw.sketch.art.trace.drawing.app), [peekly.app/apps/df7da103-7847-47ae-92c0-7f2472931eb4](https://peekly.app/apps/df7da103-7847-47ae-92c0-7f2472931eb4)

- TikHub TikTok search "AR Draw Trace Art Sketch"; x-radar search "AR drawing app", 0 posts in the last 30 days.

This article was written by AI from public data and the data we collect daily. Numbers are sourced, and inferences are labeled.