Swapped the battery icon for emoji, got 2M installs in two months: the fifth clone from a Vietnamese app factory

Emoji Battery: Icons & Pets is an Android customization app: it swaps the status bar battery for emoji and adds a small pet that crawls around the screen. It launched in August 22 and had 2.03M installs by November 6. But it isn't anyone's original idea. It's a clone that several Vietnamese app companies pushed out from a fifth developer account. The demand is real; the hard part is competing with them. Below: what it is, how it took off, where the money comes from, who is in the race, and what opportunity is left.

A one-star review from September 8

In September 2026 8, a Google Play user named Jitender Gosain gave it one star: "Features don't work, too many ads. This app is 10% working and 90% ads." Two days later, two other users left positive reviews: "Lots of options, all super cute, and easy to use" and "This app is really great, just a bit too many ads, a little intrusive." By November, these three were still the most-liked reviews on the store page, each with thirty to forty likes (Google Play store page, 11-06).

These three reviews landed during its fastest growth days. According to AppstoreSpy's estimates, it had only 3,083 cumulative installs by the end of September 6, then 10 46k, then 18 760k, with the single biggest day adding about 145k. A new app two weeks after launch can't grow that fast on organic traffic alone. Paid acquisition is involved.

What it actually is

The store page lists its features:

• Emoji battery: the battery percentage paired with emoji, colors and text, and you can build your own
• Status bar themes: Wi-Fi, signal, time and other icons all reskinned
• Notch styles: the cutout at the top of the screen can be round or heart-shaped
• Animated stickers: placed on the status bar
• Shimeji desktop pet: a little character walks and climbs the screen, even while you use other apps
• Battery Troll: shows a fake charge level, for pranking people

The permission descriptions explain the method: it uses the Accessibility Service and Display over other apps to draw its own layer above the system status bar. That's why this category exists only on Android. iOS doesn't let third-party apps touch the status bar, but the demand is there too: TikTok has workaround videos teaching iPhone users to "add emoji to their battery," some with over 10M views.

The reviews show who the users are. Reviews for the earliest sibling app, Emoji Battery Icon Customize, in the Spanish store, came in at dozens a day in late October. They say things like "muy lindo" (so cute), "me gusta muchísimo estos muñequitos lindos para mi batería" (I love these cute little figures for my battery), and some people just post a string of hearts. Others say "Demasiada publicidad, no he podido ni usarla" (too many ads, I couldn't even use it) and uninstalled. Young users who like cute things and will put up with ads is probably the core group (inferred).

It's not one app, it's an assembly line

Tracing the developer website and contact email links this package to a Vietnamese app network. The developer on the store page is SHINK COMPANY, registered to SHINKYOSEI VIET NAM JOINT STOCK COMPANY in Hanoi. But its "developer website" points to lutech.vn/app-ads.txt, the ad monetization file for Lutech Digital in Da Nang. Another app from the same account uses a support email from tomodev.vn, and TOMODEV JSC is also in Da Nang. Whether the account is owned, bought or rented can't be seen from outside. What is clear is that the ad revenue flows into Lutech's accounts.

Six emoji battery and Shimeji packages run under the same monetization account (Google Play installs, 11-06):

Together the six add up to about 24.9M installs. The rhythm is regular: every three to five weeks, a new developer account, a new package name, a new title rearranging "Emoji Battery / Shimeji / Pets / Icons," and another launch. The features are nearly identical; this one is a rebuild of the first app with a Shimeji pet added.

The approach has three advantages. Each new package gets Play's cold-start traffic for new apps; several packages holding search results and category charts at once send traffic to each other; and if one account is banned, the others remain. Bans aren't hypothetical: AppBrain recorded a similar app, com.emoji.battery.status.bar.custom, that was live for 39 days, had 2.1M installs, and was taken down in August this year.

Where users come from

Paid acquisition (inferred, high confidence). From Sep 10 to 18, daily new installs rose from 45k to 145k, which is what concentrated spending looks like. The app's own ads weren't directly visible, so we can't say exactly where it spent. What we can see is the same network running campaigns: in the TikTok European ad library, the payer is "LUTECH SOFTWARE TECHNOLOGY COMPANY LIMITED," and from Nov 2 to 6, 192 to 1,314 ads ran each day, almost all vertical videos, with Google Play landing pages and copy like "Cute emoji battery characters for your phone."

Store ratings. The app has a 4.6 rating from 46,701 ratings, and only 25 of those include written text. Its ratings-to-installs ratio is 2.3%. Its sibling ZAppsolution is at 3.8%. A similar app outside this network, HoangSi, is at 0.06%, TRUNGHIEUCOM at 0.15%, and Starvia at 0.5%. The gap is dozens of times larger. The most likely explanation is that the app frequently prompts users for ratings, possibly filtering with its own five-star pop-up before opening the system rating dialog (inferred). More ratings at a high score lift conversion and ranking on the store page.

Picking low-barrier countries. Its best placements are on the personalized category free charts: in October it reached #29 in Indonesia, #6 in Thailand, #8 in Argentina, #12 in Malaysia, and #13 overall. Those charts are easier to climb in those countries, and ads are cheaper there. Once it breaks into the top ten, organic traffic from charts and search can carry it for a while.

The category has its own buzz, though it wasn't this app that created it. A category account on TikTok called @batteryicon posted "Custom Emoji Battery 2026. Download now." in July 31, with 900k views. Shimeji desktop pets have also had a wave of organic fan-community interest over recent months. No content naming this app was found.

Where the money comes from

Two ways to earn: ads, plus $2.99 to $14.99 in-app purchases. Beautify apps get opened many times a day, so there are lots of ad impressions. The most common complaint in reviews is also that there are too many ads. It ranks #21 on the Indonesia Personalization Top Grossing chart, so IAP brings in some money, but not much. No total revenue figure is public. The whole portfolio shares one app-ads.txt, so ad revenue is most likely settled and priced centrally (inference).

How much is left

It's on the decline. Daily installs have dropped from over 100K in mid-September to 1K–20K now. Indonesia's category rank fell from #6 to #22, and Thailand from #8 to #25 (10-29 vs 11-06). For this kind of factory, that's normal: once one app has used up its cold-start push, the next one takes over.

The niche was crowded long ago. Since August, a dozen more have launched, most of them also from Vietnamese teams: TBS Solution's Oct 14 release, "Emoji Battery Icon & Pets", even has a nearly identical name. Others include Starvia, Growly, Maxlabs, randa, and 368 Phuc Minh. Outside this portfolio, but also doing big numbers, are New Widget Co.'s Emoji Battery Icon Customize (15.6M) and HoangSi's Emoji Battery: Status Bar (3.9M). The veteran pet-only app Shimeji: Play with Screen Pets has been around since 2016 and has 33.6M installs.

Oddly, almost nobody outside is talking about them. No media coverage, and in the past 30 days there's not a single X post for "emoji battery." Few people know this business exists, yet many are running it, and they are the kind who buy ads and spread across many apps.

If it were you

In one line: the demand is real, but this app didn't win on product. It won on an assembly line that spreads across many apps, buys ads, and manages ratings. Indie devs who go head-to-head are basically paying ad money to the Vietnamese factory. What you can learn is the playbook, not the category.

Who it's for: small teams that already have an Android utility or beautify app, an ad monetization account, experience running Google UAC or TikTok ads, and can handle having apps taken down.

Who it's not for: people who only write code and have never run ads; anyone building iOS-only (you can't change the status bar on iOS); anyone who can't stomach switching apps and developer accounts several times a year.

How to do it: don't ship the eighteenth emoji-battery bundle. Two directions are worth trying. First, the pet half: Shimeji has organic heat in TikTok fan-creation circles, and current packs use generic little characters. A pet tool where users upload and draw their own characters could earn free reach (inference; avoid copyrighted characters). Second, take the same "make my phone cute" demand to languages and devices the factory hasn't seriously covered, like foldables and tablets, or Japanese and Korean aesthetics. Showing restraint on ads can itself be a selling point: most of the one-star reviews are complaining about ads.

How to get users: vertical TikTok screen recordings, with a little character climbing down from the status bar in the first three seconds. Put "emoji battery" and "screen pet" in the store listing title. Before launch, spend a small budget over three weeks to push Southeast Asian or Latin American Personalization charts, measure cost per install, and only then decide whether to scale spend.

Launch before when: these packs have a lifespan measured in months. If you want to test, launch before December 2026, in time for Christmas and New Year theme swaps. @batteryicon's January New Year theme video got 35K views, so holiday themes are a ready-made reason to update.

What would mean you read it wrong:

• If two or more of these six sibling apps are taken down within three months, or Google Play tightens review of Accessibility Service use (it may only be used for accessibility features), the category's foundation has shifted.
• Conversely, if late entrants like TBS Solution and Starvia are still in the top 20 of their category charts in December, with tens of thousands of installs a day, that suggests demand runs deeper than it looks, and there's room beyond the factory.
• If an app appears in the Shimeji direction that gets traction on TikTok with user-made characters and no paid acquisition, that's evidence for the first direction.

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Data and sources: Google Play store pages, install counts, charts, and reviews (2026-10-29 to 11-06); install curves are AppstoreSpy estimates; TikTok European ad library (11-02 to 11-06); TikTok video view counts (11-06); developer entity and address from Google Play "About the developer"; company information for Lutech Digital and TOMODEV from their official sites and AppMagic; takedown records from AppBrain (couldn't read the original page directly). Anywhere marked "inference" or "est." is an inference or estimate.