32K installs, #23 on Indonesia's Top Grossing social chart: a voice-room app that doesn't look for users, it poaches rivals' agencies

HiJoy is an Indonesian-language group voice-room app: chat, send gifts, buy VIP, the same as dozens of rivals on the chart. It launched in July, and by Nov 6 it had only 31,942 Google Play installs, yet for nine straight days it ranked #20 to #25 on Indonesia's social Top Grossing chart, with the apps around it in the millions of installs. Its volume didn't come from users. It came from hosts and agencies. Below: how it got going, where the money comes from, who it's competing with, and whether you should follow it.

One video with 148k views and 119 likes

On Aug 11, HiJoy's official TikTok posted a video captioned: "Sepi? Masuk HiJoy aja… Not just voice chat, it's a 24-hour online party! Fun rooms, 'big-spender' gifts worth thousands of coins, new friends from Sabang to Merauke (Indonesia's westernmost to easternmost points)." By Nov 6, the video had 148,288 views, 119 likes, and 8 comments. The account's other videos mostly got tens to hundreds of views. A gap of over a thousandfold between views and likes looks like paid boosting (inferred, not verified).

Three days later, installs made their biggest jump since launch: from about 2,800 on Aug 14 to about 4,100 by Aug 17, peaking around 800 in a single day (third-party estimates).

Two weeks after that, on Aug 30, its Instagram @hijoy.official (based in Jakarta) posted a recruitment ad: "OPEN RECRUITMENT AGENCY VOICE ROOM… monthly income up to IDR 30M+, paid twice a month, no performance quota," with the requirement that the agency have at least 10 hosts or members and "experience in live streaming or voice-room apps." In plain terms: existing agencies from rival voice-room apps are welcome to move over in bulk.

What it is

The store listing is short: group voice rooms, community-recommended rooms, VIP membership (exclusive badges, profile decorations, special effects), personal profile pages, holiday events and leaderboards. In-app purchases run $0.99 to $99.99 each, available in 73 languages, and the website hijoyapp.net is a single intro page. Listed in Jul 12, 2026; the November initial version reached 1.1.0.

The developer account is called PokerMan. It has made poker apps on Google Play for 2022 years, with 164K downloads in total. A third-party review site says the company behind it is registered in the Seychelles. In May 2025, the same account first launched a voice-room app called VOVA, which now has 110K installs and ranks around #130 on Indonesia's social Top Grossing chart. HiJoy is the second. The two apps' privacy policies sit at the same path (api.<domain>/privacy.html), indicating the same backend with a different skin.

Where the money comes from: not 30,000 users, but a few dozen "big spenders."

On the Nov 6 Indonesia Google Play social Top Grossing chart, HiJoy was #23. Around it: #22 Kiora at 1.58M installs, #24 HappyVV at 1.17M, #25 Oichat at 210K, #18 Poppo at 47.9M. Install counts differ by one to three orders of magnitude, yet their revenue ranks sit side by side.

Voice-room money has never come from the broad user base. It comes from three groups: "big spenders" who send gifts to hosts (called sultan in Indonesia, as the video's "Gift sultan" line shows), agencies that trade gifts to push their rooms up the rankings, and coin dealers who resell in-app coins. When an agency moves over, its hosts bring their regulars, and the regulars' gifts come along. Making the top 25 on Indonesia's social Top Grossing chart takes far less money than in the US or Europe, a few dozen high-value payers is enough (inferred, revenue not public).

Later, its TikTok content was almost all recruiting: Sep 24 "Welcome NADIRA AGENCY to the HIJOY family"; Oct 16 "Want to earn money through voice chat but don't know where to start? At HIJOY it's all free: free to open a guild, free to become a host, and we'll take you all the way to success"; Nov 5 "No capital needed, join now", with the tags #kerja2027 #cuanonline (2027 work, make money online). To users it says "come play"; to hosts and guild leaders it says "come earn", and the latter is the real focus.

The ratings are interesting too: the US store page shows 2.8 as its score across 313 ratings, with 1-star 125, 5-star 125, and 3 to 4-star at zero. The Indonesia store page shows 4.0. The top few 5-star reviews cluster from late July to mid August, with generic lines like "very nice app" and "design beautiful," and the reviewer names don't look Indonesian. Looks like seeded reviews from early launch (inferred).

The Middle East is moving too

In Oct 31 it first charted on Saudi Arabia's Social Networking Top Grossing, peaking at #177. By Nov 6 it had climbed to #82. On Nov 5 it also entered the UAE's Social Networking Top Grossing, ranking #109 to #107. Malaysia has been bouncing between #77 and #113. It looks like they're using the same playbook to push into the Middle East, but we couldn't find any public evidence of how they're doing it.

Installs are still growing slowly: Sep passed 10k12, Oct passed 20k8, early November was 700-800 a day, and 7 days added 5,344 (Google Play installs, 10-29 to 11-06).

Who it's competing with

Almost everyone. About half of the Indonesia social Top Grossing top 40 are "voice rooms / live streaming + gifts", 11-06:

In the Middle East there are also older local brands like Hiya, HiParty and HyJoi, with names just one or two letters off from HiJoy.

HiJoy works the same as the others on features. What sets it apart is the supply side: guilds are free to open, there are no performance requirements, and it pays out twice a month. Anyone can meet those terms.

How many people know about it

Almost nobody: no press coverage, no one talking about it on X, no public revenue, 185 followers on Instagram and 854 on TikTok. You can only find it through the stores, APK download sites and chart aggregators. But this playbook is no secret in the going-global voice room circle, and similar apps ship every quarter.

If it were you

C. Worth studying how it cold-started, but copying it isn't worth it: the niche is packed with dozens of players. The real barrier isn't the app. It's whether you can bring in agencies, pay streamer salaries, and keep coin sellers and gift fraud under control. That's the war chest of an established team, not something a small team builds in a few months.

Who it's for: Overseas teams that already have a voice room template and have run guild and streamer settlements, looking to add a package or enter a new country. Or people already inside a country's live-streaming and voice-room guild scene who have streamer relationships.

Not for whom: solo devs who only know how to code (the app itself has no moat, and if you build it, nobody will come); anyone who can't front a few months of host salaries and settlement cash; anyone unwilling to touch the gray zone of coin dealers, guild brushing and seeded reviews.

How to do it: Don't go head-to-head in Indonesia. Look at markets where the Top Grossing bar is lower and there's less competition (Malaysia, small Middle Eastern and North African countries outside the Gulf, Central Asia). Follow HiJoy's structure: launch from an established developer account, use one template across multiple app packages, and monetize with three revenue points: VIP, gifts, and leaderboards. Write out the guild payout rules clearly before going live.

How to get users: recruit guilds first, not users. On Instagram, TikTok and WhatsApp, post recruitment in the local language: "Free to open a guild, no quota, paid twice a month." Target anyone who already runs 10+ members and has run a voice room for another app. Once you hit the top social chart in a small country, use the ranking as material for the next recruitment round. For user-facing TikTok videos, lines like "Bored? Come chat in the room" and "Big spenders gift thousands of coins" work; spend a little to boost one or two and watch install response (inferred).

Deadline: no holiday window. It's climbing charts in the Middle East. If you want in there, move within a quarter or two, before it and its rivals fill those charts.

Where it could be wrong: (1) HiJoy fell out of the top 50 in Indonesia's social Top Grossing within a month or two, and its recruitment videos stopped, which suggests the poached hosts don't stick and this cold-start playbook only works for a while; (2) if Google Play starts mass-removing these disguised voice-room apps, or the same developer's VOVA and HiJoy get banned, it means the reskinning route is closed; (3) on the flip side, if it charts in the top 50 in Saudi Arabia and the UAE and installs pass 100K, the playbook travels to other countries, and the grade should go up a notch.

Data and sources

• Installs & rankings: Google Play listing and social Top Grossing charts in Indonesia, Malaysia, Saudi Arabia and the UAE, 10-29 to 11-06; install counts for August to October are third-party estimates.
• Rating: Google Play US store page (11-04,2.8 stars / 313 ratings), Indonesia store page (4.0 stars).
• TikTok: @hijoy.official's profile and posts. Views and likes read as of 11-06.
• Instagram: @hijoy.official homepage and the Aug 30 recruitment post.
• Developer: Google Play developer page PokerMan, pokerman.io, AppBrain; the company entity comes from third-party review sites and is unverified.
• Ads: Nothing turned up for HiJoy or VOVA in the Meta Ad Library. That doesn't mean they aren't running ads. Whether the TikTok videos are paid boosts, and whether they run Google ads, is unverified.