Same play again with a new package name: a cleaning app under an Indonesian individual account, pushed to 870k installs through category placement and Spanish-language charts
What it is An Android toolbox that makes money only from ads: junk cleaning, similar-photo finding, virus scanning, app lock, and speed tests. In Spain it's called Limpieza de Basura & Seguridad.
Why it took off After the previous generation was removed, the same app was relisted under a new package name, most likely with paid acquisition opening the tap. Placed in the Productivity category, which has few cleaning apps, it reached the top 30 of the Spanish category chart on tens of thousands of installs a day, then an ad-bidding stack turned users into revenue.
CHow you could follow it Don't build another cleaning app. Borrow its distribution playbook for other tools: pick weak categories and cheap-traffic language markets, stack multiple ad networks, and test with a small budget whether ad revenue per user can beat acquisition cost.
- Data (updated daily) · first launch 2026-08-18 · 11-07 installs 871,551
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.Android · Ratings count (cumulative) Data 2026-10-29 → 2026-11-07 (10 days, 10 observations)
In early August, a cleaning app called Storage Cleaner & Security was removed from Google Play with a 1.4-star rating. 12 days later, the same developer account published a nearly identical new app with a new package name and new title. Installs ramped up from September and reached 6 870k by November. The product has nothing new. What's worth watching is the distribution: which category it went into, which countries it pushed, and what it did after the takedown.
Removed, 12 days, relisted
The developer goes by Bersamakitta (Indonesian for "together with us"). The developer listed on the Spanish Play page is an individual, Endang Darja, with an address in Bayah village, Lebak regency, Banten province, Indonesia. Searchable people with the same name appear in local small-business training rosters as villagers. This looks more like a borrowed or purchased individual developer account (inference, unverified).
The first-generation cleaning app under this account was Storage Cleaner & Security, listed in May 2026, with about 85k installs and a 1.4-star rating. Between Aug 2 and 6 it was removed by Play (per AppBrain and AppGoblin records). On Aug 18, Junk Cleaner & Security was listed, its one-line pitch nearly word-for-word identical and its feature list and description structured the same. The only difference: this generation's rating reached 4.0.
The same account also has FindMe, a location-sharing app (2.64M installs), Weather Mate (285k), and a newly listed photo-recovery app whose package name ends in .es. All three apps use [email protected] as the support email. The website is an empty page on Google Cloud reading "Hello Junk Cleaner & Security," used only to host the privacy policy and ad-declaration files.
What it is
A toolbox that does a bit of everything on Android: junk cleaning, similar-photo finding, screenshot organizing, file management, "security scanning," app lock, photo location stripping, system info, speed tests, and data usage. In the Spanish store it's called Limpieza de Basura & Seguridad, with the one-line pitch "Elimina basura, análisis de seguridad, bloqueo de apps y privacidad de fotos." It's free, has no in-app purchases, and runs only ads.
These features are standard parts of cleaning apps. Google's own Files app includes cleaning and duplicate-photo detection for free, and Samsung and Xiaomi phones ship similar tools built in. What it sells is the feeling of "one tap and I'm safe."
How it took off
The install curve looks like this (AppstoreSpy estimates): Sep 2 674 installs, Sep 8 1,553 installs, almost no volume for the first three weeks; Sep 10 jumped to 14k, Sep 17 79k, Oct 4 423k, Oct 27 771k. There were several spike days at 50–90k installs a day (10-04 about 54k, 10-08 about 89k). By Nov 6, Google Play showed 872k cumulative, with 101k new in 7 days.
This curve looks like a tap opened, not word of mouth spreading slowly. Another number points the same way: in the last week, new ratings were 7 to 23 per day against roughly 14k installs a day, so about one in a thousand users left a rating. TikTok and X show no content about it at all. So it's almost certainly bought traffic (inference). Whether the spend went to Google, Meta, or swapped traffic through ad networks can't be verified from outside.
Traffic bought this way was also placed in a more visible spot.
Category. It sits under Productivity, not Tools. Over the past 7 days, cleaner apps that gained 50k+ had 129 entries in Tools but only 21 in Productivity. On Spain's Productivity Top Free chart, the top spots go to government apps, AI and PDF tools, so a cleaner doing 10k+ installs a day can land at #21 to #27; Mexico #49–#74, Argentina #32–#58, Spain overall chart #144–#200 (Google Play charts, 10-29 to 11-06). Charting gets you chart traffic and placement in "similar apps" recommendations.
Languages and countries. The main battlegrounds are Spain, Mexico and Argentina. Ad CPMs are high in Spain and paid acquisition is cheap in Latin America, a mix that suits an ad-funded business that has to pay back through ads. The new photo-recovery app uses a .es package name, which suggests this line is still being expanded.
Reviews. The most prominent five-star review on the Spanish page reads: "Han logrado colocarce en este lugar para apoyar de forma excelente y alcanzar una protección a nuestras necesidades de recibir la maxima protección…" (roughly: you did an excellent job protecting our needs… thank you). It's long and empty, and 254 people marked it helpful (10-02). Below it, a one-star review complains about "phone lines" and "stealing money," apparently aimed at the wrong company. The developer replied with a template saying "charges only happen with your consent, and you can manage the subscription in your account," but the app has no subscription. Every review gets a reply, and the replies are all templates. Whether the positive reviews are incentivized or fake is unverified.
Where the money comes from
Ads only. Its ad declaration file (app-ads.txt, updated 10-29) lists AdMob, Meta Audience Network, Pangle, Mintegral, TopOn and Bigo, plus a long tail including PubMatic and Criteo. AppGoblin detects 19 ad networks, 2 mediation SDKs and 1 attribution SDKs. TopOn for mediation with Pangle, Mintegral and Bigo bidding together is the standard setup for Chinese going-global tool teams, so a Chinese team is most likely behind it, publishing through an Indonesian personal account (inferred).
AppGoblin estimates about 180k MAU and "$10K+" monthly revenue, all from ads. These are estimates. Real retention and ROI are unknown.
Who it's competing with
Cleaner apps are one of the most crowded categories on Google Play. Over the past 7 days, 170 cleaner apps gained 50k+ installs, and 60 of them first charted after June.
| App | Developer | Scale | How it compares |
|---|---|---|---|
| Cleanup: Phone Storage Cleaner | Codeway | 36.5M installs, +960k in 7 days | Market leader, subscription model, heavy paid acquisition |
| Hyper Cleaner / Smart Clean Pro | JTR Labs | 977k / 1.15M, 7 days +810k / +670k | Same-period newcomer, Tools category, English market, growing 7× faster |
| AntiVirus Clean Master | Blooming Techno | $8.15M, #2 in Spain Tools | Same "cleaner + antivirus" pitch, Tools category |
| Keep Clean / Mantén Limpio | Beijing Yuexi Qingfeng | $3.4M, #28 in Spain Productivity | Same playbook, ranks right behind it on the same chart |
| Daily Cleaner / Cleaner & Guard | Beijing Fengqi Yuntu | 166k / 530k | Chinese team, same category and region |
| Deep Clean Elite | PDI Turbo | $3.48M, #4 in Italy Productivity | Also in Productivity |
Source: Google Play install counts and charts, 11-06.
"Productivity + Spanish-speaking market + ads only" is not this app's invention. At least several Chinese teams are doing the same thing on the same chart.
How many people know it
Few. No public revenue, no coverage on media, X or TikTok. It only shows up on data sites like AppBrain, AppGoblin and AppWinners. That matters little to a copycat: nobody is watching it because there are simply too many apps like it, not because the space is still empty.
If it were you
Verdict: Don't build another cleaner app. What's worth taking is the distribution method: pick a weakly contested category and a language market with cheap paid acquisition and decent ad CPMs, then push up per-user ad revenue with multi-network bidding. That can be transplanted to other tool categories.
Who it suits: tool teams that already have ad mediation monetization and paid acquisition, and that can calculate per-user ad revenue against acquisition cost; people with several developer accounts who are comfortable with matrix-style distribution.
Who it doesn't suit: anyone who has never run ads and is counting on organic installs; anyone who doesn't want to touch gray tactics like "republish under a new package" or sock-puppet accounts; anyone who wants a product with reputation that can be run long-term. Ratings and reputation are consumables for this kind of app.
How to do it: Pick the category before the niche. Check your tool against each Google Play category chart and see where similar products are least crowded and where the chart entry bar is lowest (for example, can a 10k-a-day app reach the top 30?). Localize the store listing by country and use local language in the title. For monetization, use a mediation layer like AdMob plus TopOn so Pangle, Mintegral and Bigo bid together. Republishing under a new package breaks Play's duplicate-content rules and can take down the whole account, so count that as a cost and don't treat it as the core of the strategy.
How to acquire users: Lead with paid acquisition. Test a few countries on a small budget, and first check whether one user's ad revenue over a week covers their acquisition cost. Scale spend only once it does. Use category charts and "similar apps" placement to catch organic traffic.
When to move: There's no deadline. This is an evergreen business. The window depends on when the category and country you pick get saturated by others. Spain's Productivity chart already has several cleaner apps.
What would show you're wrong: (1) It drops off Spain's Productivity chart over the next month or two and install growth stalls. That means paid acquisition is outpacing returns and the margin is thinner than it looks. (2) Google Play tightens category review and moves cleaner apps from Productivity back to Tools, which closes the category arbitrage. (3) This account or a sister app gets taken down again, which means republishing risk has eaten the profit.
Research notes: competitor table, acquisition evidence, full research report
- Competitors
Name Where Launched Scale How it differs from this one Cleanup: Phone Storage Cleaner(Codeway) Android 2025-11 $36.5M installs, +7k in 960 days, #1 Top Grossing in UAE Tools Subscription model, heavy paid acquisition, an order of magnitude bigger. This one is ads only and sits in Productivity. Hyper Cleaner / Smart Clean Pro(JTR Labs) Android 2026-10 / 2026-09 977k / 1.15M, 7 days +810k / +670k Same-period newcomer, Tools category, focused on English markets, growing 7× faster Keep Clean - File Master (Beijing Yuexi Qingfeng) Android 2025-12 $3.4M, #28 in Spain Productivity Almost the same playbook, ranked right next to it on the same chart, and bigger Daily Cleaner / Cleaner & Guard (Beijing Fengqi Yuntu) Android 2026-09 / 2026-07 166k / 530k Chinese team in the same category and region, smaller scale AntiVirus Clean Master(Blooming Techno) Android 2026-02 $8.15M, #2 in Spain Tools Same cleaner + antivirus positioning, Tools category, 10× the scale Clean Master Ultra Security(Mobilio) Android 2023-12 89.7M Veteran big name that borrowed the Clean Master brand Files by Google / built-in phone cleaners Big-company features Years Preinstalled on billions of devices Free, ad-free, built into the OS. It sells one-tap peace of mind and antivirus hype. AVG Cleaner Android 2013 103M Established security vendor, subscription monetization - Where users come from
- Inferred Paid acquisition (Google App Campaigns / Meta / ad networks): almost no traction for three weeks, then a sudden opening around 09-09, with single-day spikes of 5–90k; rating-to-install ratio about 0.1%; ads-only monetization with a stack that can pay back; not tracked in ad libraries
- Confirmed Category arbitrage + store charts: placed in Productivity. Among cleaner apps gaining ≥50k over 7 days, Tools had 129 and Productivity had only 21. At about 14k installs a day it reached #21–#27 on Spain's Productivity chart and #144–#200 overall.
- Confirmed Removal, then republishing under a new package name / account matrix: the same developer's Storage Cleaner & Security (85k installs, 1.4★) was pulled by Play around 2026-08-02, then relisted under a new package name 12 days later. The same account also has FindMe (2.64M) and Weather Mate and Quick Recovery (.es package name).
- Confirmed Spanish localization / market selection: main charts in es / mx / ar, with the title localized as Limpieza de Basura & Seguridad.
- Inferred TikTok / X content: nothing found on TikHub or x-radar.
Why Junk Cleaner & Security (com.junkcleaner.security) made it onto the charts
In one line: this is a fairly ordinary Android "cleaner + antivirus + app lock + speed test" bundle, monetized only through ads. The developer account sits under an Indonesian individual's name, and the ad mediation uses a typical Chinese going-global tech stack. It reached 870k installs not because the product is special, but because three things stacked: the same app was pulled and quickly republished under a new package name; it was placed in the Productivity category to avoid the Tools category, which is packed with cleaner apps; and it very likely grew through paid acquisition, with ad revenue paying it back. This is a mature tool-arbitrage business, not a new opportunity.
1. Data (our googleplay library, 2026-10-29 to 11-06)
- New installs over 871,551,7 days: 100,521 (app_profile, 2026-11-06). 963 ratings, average 4.06.
- Curve since launch (app_day_ext, AppstoreSpy estimates): 2026-09-02 had only 674 installs, then 09-08 jumped from 1,553,09-10 to 13,829,09-17 to 78,549,10-04 to 423k, then 10-27 to 771k, and afterward it grew by roughly 10k+ per day. A classic "opening" curve: almost no traffic for three weeks, then around Sep 9 a sudden jump of thousands to tens of thousands a day, with several single-day spikes of 5–90k (10-04 about 54k, 10-08 about 89k). That shape looks more like budgeted paid traffic than organic growth.
- Rating-to-install ratio: over the past week, 7–23 new ratings a day against about 14k installs a day, a ratio around 0.1%, consistent with paid-acquisition users.
- Charts (chart_rank): Spain Productivity Top Free #21–#32, Mexico #49–#74, Argentina #32–#58; Spain overall chart #144–#200; sporadic appearances at #160–#199 on the Productivity charts in Germany, Vietnam, the Philippines and Singapore. AppWinners says it appeared on charts in 94 countries on one day (https://appwinners.eu/developer/android/bersamakitta, mostly small-country category charts).
- Monetization: app_snap shows offers_iap = False, ad_supported = True. AppGoblin estimates about 181k MAU and "$10K+" monthly revenue, with 100% from ads (https://www.appgoblin.info/apps/com.junkcleaner.security).
- Version: 1.0.8, last updated 2026-10-13.
2. The developer and how the business works
- Developer: Bersamakitta (Indonesian, meaning "together"). The developer info on the Play listing is an individual, Endang Darja, with an address in Bayah, Lebak Regency, Banten, Indonesia (Spanish Play listing). Searches for the name turn up a local UMKM (micro-enterprise) training roster and a factory operator (Scribd, JobStreet). It looks very much like a borrowed or purchased individual developer account (inferred, unverified).
- Matrix under the same account: FindMe - Location Share (2.65M installs, 2025-05), Weather Mate (285k, 2025-06), and the newly launched Quick Recovery Restaurar Fotos (with a .es package name, aimed at the Spanish market). The developer's apps total about 3.8M installs in the database. All three apps use [email protected] as the support email.
- Removed, then relaunched under a new package name (key evidence): the same developer previously had Storage Cleaner & Security (com.storage.ai.phone.cleaner.nev) on 2026-05, with a one-line description almost word for word the same ("Storage management, security scan, junk removal & photo privacy"). It reached about 85k installs, AppGoblin showed an average rating of 1.4★, and it was pulled from Google Play between 2026-08-02 and 08-06 (AppBrain, chrome-stats, AppGoblin). 12 days later, the 08-18 Junk Cleaner & Security went live under a new package name, with the same feature list and description structure, and started scaling in September. The previous version had terrible reviews and got pulled; this version aims to keep its rating above 4.0.
- Ad monetization stack (https://junk-cleaner-security-429335433228.us-west1.run.app/app-ads.txt, updated 2026-10-29): AdMob, Meta Audience Network, Pangle, Mintegral, TopOn (toponad.com), Bigo, plus a long list of resellers like PubMatic and Criteo. AppGoblin detected 19 ad networks, 2 mediation SDKs and 1 attribution SDKs. TopOn + Pangle + Mintegral + Bigo is the standard combo for Chinese teams going global, so the operation is likely a mainland Chinese team publishing through Indonesian shell accounts (inference). FindMe was also listed on mergeek.cn, a Chinese app aggregator. The official site is just a blank page on Cloud Run reading "Hello Junk Cleaner & Security", hosting only a privacy policy and app-ads.txt.
- Review operations: the most prominent Spanish-language reviews are long, empty praise ("Han logrado colocarse en este lugar para apoyar de forma excelente…"), and this one has 253 people marking it helpful. The developer replies to every review with templated responses. One 1-star review complaining about "phone lines, stealing money" got a reply mentioning "subscriptions", but the app has no in-app purchases. These are signs of templated operations. Whether reviews were bought or incentivized is unverified.
3. Where users came from (growth tactics)
| Channel | Evidence | Confirmed? |
|---|---|---|
| Paid acquisition (Google App Campaigns / Meta / ad-network traffic swaps) | No traction for three weeks, then the tap opened, with single-day spikes of 5–90k; a rating-to-install ratio of about 0.1%; a full ad-monetization stack built to pay back through ads; and this is common among similar apps. But our metaads, googleads and tiktokads libraries don't track it (it isn't on the list, which doesn't mean it isn't advertising). | No (strong inference) |
| Category arbitrage / store search | Placed under Productivity rather than Tools. In our library, of the "clean/junk" apps gaining ≥50k over 7 days, 129 are in Tools and only 21 are in Productivity. The top of Spain's Productivity chart is government apps, AI and PDF tools, so a cleaner adding about 14k a day can rank #21–27, gaining chart exposure and "similar apps" placement. The store listing was localized into Spanish, with the title "Limpieza de Basura & Seguridad". | Yes (chart and category data) |
| Relaunch under a new package name after removal / account matrix | Storage Cleaner & Security was pulled 08-02, then the same app was relaunched under a new package name 12 days later. The same account also has FindMe, Weather and Quick Recovery. | Yes |
| Choice of Spanish-speaking region | Main charts are es / mx / ar, and new apps carry the .es package name directly. Latin American traffic is cheap, while Spain has higher eCPMs, and the two are paired. | Yes (charts); the motive is inferred |
| Content / creators / social media | TikTok searches for the Spanish name return no relevant videos, and X (x-radar, 90 days) has no posts mentioning it | No (none found) |
4. Competitors
Cleaning apps are one of the most crowded niches on Google Play. In our library alone, 7 days saw more than 50 "clean / junk" apps gain ≥170k, and after 2026-06 there were 60+ more new launches.
- Cleanup: Phone Storage Cleaner (Codeway, 2025-1.14B installs, +7k over 960 days, #1 on UAE Tools Top Grossing): subscription model, big-brand paid acquisition, and an order of magnitude larger.
- Hyper Cleaner / Smart Clean Pro (JTR Labs, 2026-10 / 9.98M / 1.15M, +810k / +670k over 7 days): launched in the same period, ramping 7 times faster, in the Tools category.
- CleanMas / CleanLoom (BetterFly Games, 13.7M / 11.1M): same playbook, multi-app portfolio operator.
- Clean Master Ultra Security (Mobilio, 89.7M) and AntiVirus Clean Master (Blooming Techno, 8.15M, #2 on Spain Tools): cleaner plus antivirus bundled together.
- Deep Clean Elite (PDI Turbo, 3.48M, #4 on Italy Productivity) and Mantén Limpio / Keep Clean (Beijing Yuexi Qingfeng, 3.4M, #28 on Spain Productivity, ranked just below it): same Productivity placement, same Spanish-market approach.
- Daily Cleaner / Cleaner & Guard (Beijing Fengqi Yuntu, 166k / 530k): a domestic team in the same category and region, the clearest direct competitor.
- Big-platform features: Google's own Files by Google includes cleaning and duplicate photo detection; phone OS vendors (Samsung Device Care, Xiaomi Phone Manager) also ship built-in cleaners.
- Established players: AVG Cleaner (103M), among others.
Compared with them, it has no feature differentiation. The feature list is industry-standard (cleaning, similar photos, screenshot management, antivirus, app lock, photo geotag removal, system info, speed test, data usage tracking).
5. Differentiation, and whether that's why it broke out
At the product level there is no differentiation. The real "differentiation" is in distribution: ① placing it in the Productivity category, where it can surface on less competitive charts in Spain and Latin America; ② when an app gets pulled or its reputation tanks, relaunching the same code under a new package name and new title; ③ running a full Chinese go-global ad mediation stack to maximize per-user ad revenue so paid acquisition pays back. These explain how it grew, but they are not unique. Keep Clean, Daily Cleaner and Deep Clean Elite all use the same approach.
6. Visibility
Few people know about it yet. No public revenue, no media or X coverage; it appears only on data sites like AppBrain, AppGoblin, AppWinners and apkpure. But the category itself is already crowded, and at least a dozen players run this same playbook.
7. What to borrow
- Category choice: putting the same product in a less competitive category makes it easier to surface on local category charts, earning chart traffic and "similar apps" placement.
- Localize first for Spanish-speaking markets (Spain + Latin America), then add a new app with a .es package name dedicated to this market.
- Relaunch quickly under a new package name after removal or a damaged rating (carries account-ban risk and violates Play's repetitive content policy).
- When revenue comes only from ads, stack TopOn/AdMob mediation with Pangle/Mintegral/Bigo and other bidders to raise ARPU, supporting paid acquisition.
8. Uncertain
- No direct evidence on paid acquisition channels or how much was spent (the ad libraries don't track it).
- Whether the operator is Chinese: only indirect evidence from the ad stack and shell accounts.
- Whether the positive reviews were solicited or bought is unverified.
- AppGoblin's $10K+/month revenue is an estimate; real ROI and retention are unknown.
- What the one-star complaints about "charges and subscriptions" refer to (the app has no in-app purchases) is unverified.
Sources: googleplay library (app_profile / app_day_ext / chart_rank / app_snap, 2026-11-06); Play Spanish listing and developer page; AppBrain, chrome-stats, AppGoblin (Storage Cleaner & Security removal records); AppGoblin (Junk Cleaner & Security estimates); AppWinners; app-ads.txt (Cloud Run site); x-radar and TikHub searches (no results).