# "920k installs in two months" is an illusion: a tracing app, and the crowded race behind it

> Source: https://stringers.io/en/apps/play_com.pixin.drawing.art.editor.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 didn't really break out. A utility-app studio in Dubai and Pakistan used keyword stuffing, localized titles, cheap traffic from low-cost countries and rating prompts to grow steadily to 920k over five-plus months. The "two months" impression comes from the listing date being reset.

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

ArtHub: Trace & Draw Sketch · Pixin Studio

# "920k installs in two months" is an illusion: a tracing app and the crowded race behind it

**What it is** Prop your phone over paper and the camera shows a semi-transparent line drawing you trace by hand, helping beginners draw anime and sketches. It earns from ads and $9.99–19.99 in-app purchases.

**Why it took off** It didn't really: utility-app studios in Dubai and Pakistan grew it steadily over five-plus months through keyword stuffing, localized titles, low-cost-country traffic, and rating prompts to 920k. The "two months" is an illusion caused by a reset of the listing date.

**D** **How you could approach it** Don't build yet another AR tracing app. If you must go near it, pick the segment the leaders haven't done well, such as practice plans and subscriptions for narrow audiences like art-school applicants or tattoo artists, and have Google App ad budget ready.

D grade: the category has been filled with dozens of studios for 2023 years. On Google Play and iOS the leaders have tens of millions of installs and tens of thousands of ratings. ArtHub came in with a full studio playbook and still captured only a sliver of the leaders, so small teams have no room to follow. Few people know about it yet

Data (updated daily) · first launch 2026-09-07 · 11-07 installs 918,793

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)

ArtHub is an app on Google Play that uses your phone camera to help people trace drawings and learn to draw. The store page says it was listed in Sep 2026 7, and by Nov 6 it had 919k installs, which looks like a two-month breakout. It isn't: it has been around since spring, with a few thousand installs a day accumulating up to now, and the listing date was reset. Its "AR tracing" category has dozens of nearly identical apps, and the leader's new installs in a week are 18 times its. This piece explains what it is, where the traffic came from, and why we don't recommend following it.

### A 29-person review that tapped "helpful" on a four-character review

On Oct 2026 13, a user named Ferdousi Sultana Shirin left a review on Google Play for ArtHub that said only "l am so happy." By Nov 6, 29 people had marked it helpful, which puts it at the top of the listing. The two next to it are similar: "I like I'm into it" from Oct 3 (26 helpful votes) and "wow what a aap 😳" from Oct 4 (17 helpful votes).

This is a rare look at an app's user voice. As of Nov 6, it has a 4.9-star rating from 524 ratings on the store. The distribution has only two tiers: 481 five-star and 37 three-star ratings, with one-, two- and four-star all at 0. Only a handful of written reviews are visible (Google Play, 11-06). An app with 90 million+ installs doesn't normally look like this.

### What it is

You hold your phone above paper, open the camera, and a semi-transparent line drawing sits on the screen. You trace it on the real paper while watching the screen. The store page calls it "Turn your phone into a smart drawing companion." The feature list is long: thousands of templates across anime, comics, chibi, animals, flowers and cars; you can import your own photos as a base; you can zoom, rotate, adjust opacity, lock position, and convert a photo to a pencil sketch in one tap. The Oct 29 update note reads "More Anime and Drawing Templates," version 0.21.

Money comes from two places: ads inside the app, and in-app purchases priced at $9.99–19.99. It has never appeared on a Top Grossing chart in any country, so its revenue is not visible from outside.

The developer is Pixin Studio. The store page lists the company as NexiFie L.L.C-FZ in Meydan, Dubai. The contact number is a Pakistani one starting with +92. The website xen-studios.com also hosts several developer accounts: XEN Studios, Pixin, and Gen-Z AI Apps. They mostly make photo editors, photo frames and AI collage apps (Google Play developer page, Tracxn). Together these accounts have roughly 40M installs (Google Play, 11-06, estimated). This is a typical tool-app studio, and tracing is just another category they moved into.

### How much it actually grew, and how

First, why "two months" is wrong. Third-party estimator AppstoreSpy records show this app already had 275k installs in Jun 2026 10. Those tools usually start tracking an app once it has a thousand or two installs, so it likely launched in spring or earlier (inference). The "Sep 7" date on the store is probably a reset from editing the listing or relisting in a new store.

| Timeline | Total installs | Average per day |
|---|---|---|
| 06-10 | 275k (AppstoreSpy estimate) | — |
| 09-18 | 649k (AppstoreSpy estimate) | About 3,900 |
| 10-15 | 816k (AppstoreSpy estimate) | About ¥6,000–8,000 |
| 10-29 | 868k (Google Play) | — |
| 11-06 | 919k (Google Play) | About 7,200 (+50k in the last 7 days) |

The curve has no spike on any day. It just climbs steadily. The rankings show where the volume comes from. On Nov 6, it was charted in 21 countries' Art & Design Top Free charts. Its best position was #24 in Vietnam, followed by Thailand #66, the Philippines #71, Turkey #74 and Saudi Arabia #75. The US and UK were both beyond #160 (Google Play charts, 11-06). The Vietnamese listing title is localized as "ArtHub: Vẽ phác thảo và đồ lại" (sketch and trace), and the English description repeats trace, draw, sketch, anime and camera dozens of times.

How much evidence each acquisition source has:

- **Store search + keyword optimization** : titles, descriptions and localization all line up, and rankings cluster in countries where the category bar is low. Likely, inferred.

- **Long-running Google app ads** : the flat curve, focus on low-cost traffic countries, and an ads-plus-premium-IAP monetization mix all fit. Nothing turned up in the Meta ad library, but absence there doesn't mean no spend. Unverified.

- **Cross-promotion from the studio's photo apps** : photo tools with tens of millions of installs can send new apps traffic through interstitials and cross-promotion. Inferred, no direct evidence.

- **TikTok, X, media** : no discussion or creator partnerships turned up. The only pages online are auto-generated listings from download sites.

- **Rating prompts** : only three- and five-star ratings, almost no written reviews, and a rating-to-install ratio of about 1:1800 (the established peer AR Drawing: Sketch & Paint has 856k ratings against 37.1M installs, roughly 1:43). The most likely explanation is an in-app rating prompt that only sends happy users to the store, though other methods aren't ruled out (inferred). This keeps the store score steady at 4.8–4.9, which raises click-through in search results.

### Who it's competing with: the whole category is its rivals

This category has been a standard lane for tool studios since 2023. Among Art & Design apps on Google Play with trace or AR draw in the name, sorted by new installs over the last ~7 days, ArtHub ranks roughly #22 (Google Play, 11-06):

| Product | Developer | Release date shown on the store | Total installs | New in the last 7 days |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Artrace: AR Easy Draw & Sketch | Braly (Vietnam) | 2024-06 | 64.8M | 891k |
| Artmate: Drawing Together | Braly (Vietnam) | 2026-09 | 19.5M | 643k |
| Draw Anime: AR Tracing App | trimt | 2025-12 | 6.69M | 518k |
| AR Drawing: Sketch & Paint | AR Drawing | 2023-06 | 37.1M | 262k |
| Draw Anime - AR Drawing Sketch | LOGICLABS | 2025-10 | 6.63M | 237k |
| Sketch Photo: Learn to Draw | APSOFT HKT | 2026-01 | 19M | 122k |
| **ArtHub** | Pixin Studio | 2026-09 (reset) | 920k | 50k |

On the Nov 6 Vietnam Art & Design Top Free chart, about 12 of the top 30 were AR tracing apps. iOS is just as crowded. Searching "ar drawing trace" in the US App Store, AR Drawing: Sketch & Paint has 96k ratings, Artrace 79k, PicTrace 60k and AR Sketch Anime 12k. New ones are still being listed in 2026 (App Store, 11-06).

ArtHub is hard to tell apart from them on features. The one to watch is Braly. The older Artrace still adds 890k a week. The newer Artmate added a "draw together" social hook, and the store lists it as launched in mid-September, with 19.5M installs and the #1 spot on the UK category chart. Having studied ArtHub, though, the store launch date may not be the true first release, so Artmate's "two months" also needs a question mark (unverified).

### The demand is real, but there's no room for newcomers

"Learn to draw by tracing with your phone" is a long-running, steady need. Students and beginner artists in Southeast Asia, Turkey and Latin America have searched for it consistently, and the leaders add nearly a million new installs a week. This isn't a fad. The problem is that the bar to meet this need is almost nonexistent: point the camera, overlay a translucent image, and one person can build it in a few weeks. So the competition isn't about the product. It's about who has the broadest keyword coverage, whose traffic is cheapest in which country, who has an established app with tens of millions of installs to cross-promote from, and who can keep ratings above 4.8.

ArtHub came in with a whole studio's playbook and has run for five-plus months, yet it has only reached a fraction of the leaders.

### If it were you

**The short version** : don't. This is a lane dozens of tool studios have already filled. ArtHub is itself one of the followers, and it hasn't broken out.

**Who it suits** : almost no position here suits a small team trying to enter directly. The only case that makes sense is a studio that already has a few million installs across tool apps, has cross-promotion in place, and buys Google app ads in low-cost countries. For them, adding one more tracing app costs little and can earn some ad revenue.

**Who it doesn't suit** : indie developers hoping to break in with features or a nicer look; anyone who won't buy traffic and is counting on organic store installs; and anyone planning iOS-only to avoid the competition (iOS has four or five apps with tens of thousands of ratings too).

**How to do it, if you must** : don't build another "AR tracing" app. Go after the part the leaders haven't done well. A direction worth testing is making the stage after tracing the product: daily practice plans, progress tracking, and before-and-after comparisons of traced work that are easy to share, monetized through subscriptions rather than interstitial ads. Another option is a narrow audience, such as art school applicants, tattoo artists tracing line drawings, or parents drawing with kids, in a language that hasn't been localized yet. Both are inferences, with no proven case studies behind them.

**How to get users** : store search is the main battlefield in this category. Start with localized titles and keywords in one or two countries where the category bar is low. If organic installs don't come, you'll need Google app ads, and the budget has to be worked out carefully, since interstitial revenue rarely covers it. "Before and after" tracing content on short video is the only format with real shareability for this kind of product, but nobody in this lane has used it to break out so far.

**Timing** : there's no window to speak of. The category was crowded by 2023, and launching a quarter earlier or later makes little difference.

**What would mean I misread it** : ① ArtHub's new installs over the last 7 days climb past 200k, compared with 2027 January, and it charts in any country's Top Grossing, which would mean the studio playbook still makes money here and volume hasn't peaked; ② an indie dev, not a studio, builds a tracing app to several million installs or publicly reports solid subscription revenue within half a year; ③ Google Play starts mass-delisting copycat tracing apps or purging abnormal ratings, the leaders get reshuffled, and newcomers get room.

[Android store page ↗](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.pixin.drawing.art.editor)

**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 | 2024-06-23 | 64.8M installs, +891k in 7 days, #2 in Italy's category chart | The category leader with the same features is 70 times the size of ArtHub and growing 18 times as fast |
| Artmate: Drawing Together(Braly JSC) | Android | 2026-09-15 | 19.5M installs, +643k in 7 days, #1 in the UK category chart | A same-period launch with a social "draw together" hook that pulled well ahead of ArtHub in two months |
| AR Drawing: Sketch & Paint | Android | 2023-06-02 | 37.1M installs, 856k ratings | An established peer with a website and iOS version, and more credible ratings |
| Draw Anime: AR Tracing App(trimt) | Android | 2025-12-25 | 6.69M installs, +518k in 7 days, #2 in Vietnam | Also focused on anime tracing, growing 10 times as fast as ArtHub |
| Sketch Photo: Learn to Draw(APSOFT HKT) | Android | 2026-01-08 | 19M installs, +122k in 7 days | A peer focused on converting photos to sketches for tracing |
| Trace Drawing: How To Draw(GeniusTools Labs) | Android | 2023-06-30 | 16M installs | An older product from a developer with multiple apps in the same space |
| SketchAR / AR Drawings / AR Easy Draw | iOS | From ¥2017 | Not verified | The iOS counterpart in this category; ArtHub is Android-only |

Where users come from

- Inferred **Store search + ASO keyword stuffing and localized titles** : titles and descriptions are packed with trace/draw/sketch/anime/camera; the Vietnamese title is localized as 'ArtHub: Vẽ phác thảo và đồ lại'; rankings cluster in Vietnam, Thailand, the Philippines, Turkey and Saudi Arabia (googleplay library chart_rank)

- Inferred **Paid acquisition (Google App Campaigns, etc.)** : the curve stays flat with no spikes, focuses on low-cost countries, and the monetization mix pairs ads with premium IAP; the metaads library shows nothing, but that library only tracks advertisers on its list

- Inferred **Cross-promotion across the studio's portfolio** : xen-studios.com hosts Pixin Studio, Pixin, XEN Studios and Gen-Z AI Apps, with about 40M installs in the library; FoxData says Pixin Studio has published 20 apps

- Inferred **Rating prompt filtering for positive reviews** : rating distribution [0,0,37,0,481], no 1/2/4-star ratings, 1 written reviews, rating-to-install ratio about 1:1800 (app_snap 2026-11-06)

- Inferred **TikTok/X/media content** : searches in TikHub and x-radar returned nothing; the only pages online are auto-generated download-site listings

## ArtHub: Trace & Draw Sketch (com.pixin.drawing.art.editor) research report

> Channel: Google Play; developer Pixin Studio (website xen-studios.com, which also hosts XEN Studios, Pixin and Gen-Z AI Apps); data as of 2026-11-06.

### Bottom line

It's not a breakout. It's a generic volume play in a crowded category: AR tracing / phone-camera overlay drawing (trace & draw), with dozens of near-identical clones on the charts. ArtHub's 919k installs came from steady gains of three to five thousand a day since spring 2026, not a two-month spike: the release date on its data card, 2026-09-07, has been reset. It adds about 50k a week, roughly 1/18 of what Artrace, the category leader, adds. Its rating distribution is odd (only 3-star and 5-star reviews), which points to very low user engagement and signs of prompted five-star reviews.

### 1. The data itself: recall scoring overrated it

- **Installs** : googleplay library app_profile, 2026-11-06 cumulative, 918,793,7-day new installs 50,443 (about 7.2k/day), on the ART_AND_DESIGN Top Free chart in 21 countries. Its best position was #20–28 in Vietnam (10-29 to 11-06), #37–74 in Turkey and #44–66 in Thailand; #175–193 in the US and #162–193 in the UK (googleplay library chart_rank).

- **The launch date was reset** : in the googleplay library's app_day_ext (AppstoreSpy estimate), 2026-06-10 it already had **274,584** installs. AppstoreSpy usually only starts tracking an app at one or two thousand installs, so the real launch should be in spring 2026 or earlier. The store's "2026-09-07" was most likely reset when the listing was edited or expanded to more storefronts. The recall rationale's "about two months on the store, 919k" doesn't hold: the app went from 270k to 920k over more than 5 months.

- **Growth curve** : by AppstoreSpy's cumulative estimates, mid-June to mid-September averaged about 3.9k/day (06-10 was 275k, 09-18 was 649k). It accelerated to roughly 6–8k/day from late September to mid-October (09-25 was 649k, 10-15 was 816k), then settled at 5–7k/day. Our own observations from 10-29 to 11-06 show 868,350 to 918,793. There are no single-day spikes; the whole curve looks like sustained paid acquisition or steady store search traffic.

- **Abnormal ratings** : from the googleplay library's app_snap histogram, 11-06 is [1★0, 2★0, 3★37, 4★0, 5★481], with only 1 written reviews. Between 11-03 and 11-06, the 3-star count also fell from 41 to 37. A normal app doesn't end up with zero 1/2/4-star ratings. The ratio of rating count to installs is about 1:1800 (AR Drawing: Sketch & Paint, a peer in the same category, has 856k ratings / 37.1M installs, about 1:43). Two things follow: (a) users almost never stay to interact; (b) the ratings have likely been filtered through an in-app rating prompt (only happy users are sent to the store), or nudged or faked some other way. The ratings themselves tell us nothing useful.

- **Version 0.21** (app_snap), updated 10-29 time(s), with release notes reading "More Anime and Drawing Templates". Monetization is "Contains ads + in-app purchases $9.99–$19.99" (Google Play page, app_snap). It doesn't appear on the Top Grossing chart in any storefront (googleplay library, best_grossing_rank is empty).

### 2. Competitors: this category is already a red ocean

Among apps in the googleplay library whose name or package contains trace / AR draw, in the ART_AND_DESIGN category, sorted by new installs over the last 7 days, ArtHub ranks around #22. The leaders are below (googleplay library app_profile, 2026-11-06):

| Product | Developer | Launch (store) | Total installs | 7 new in the last day | Best category rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Artrace: AR Easy Draw & Sketch | Braly JSC (Vietnam) | 2024-06-23 | 64.8M | 891k | #2 in Italy |
| Artmate: Drawing Together | Braly JSC | 2026-09-15 | 19.5M | 643k | UK #1 |
| Draw Anime: AR Tracing App | trimt | 2025-12-25 | 6.69M | 518k | #2 in Vietnam |
| AR Drawing: Sketch & Paint | AR Drawing(ar-drawing.com) | 2023-06-02 | 37.1M | 262k | Philippines #9 |
| Draw Anime - AR Drawing Sketch | LOGICLABS | 2025-10-02 | 6.63M | 237k | Mexico #8 |
| Draw Cartoon - AR Sketch App | Braly JSC | 2025-01-08 | 24.6M | 82k | #7 in Vietnam |
| Sketch Photo: Learn to Draw | APSOFT HKT | 2026-01-08 | 19M | 122k | India #23 |
| Trace Drawing: How To Draw | GeniusTools Labs | 2023-06-30 | 16M | 124k | Turkey #18 |
| Draw Easy AI: AR Trace Sketch | Kraph Tech | 2022-12-22 | 31.5M | — | — |
| Papercopy: Trace & Draw | Mich Bros | 2017-04-01 | 4.43M | 42k | UAE #51 |
| **ArtHub (this app)** | Pixin Studio | 2026-09-07 (reset) | 920k | 50k | #24 in Vietnam |

2026-11-06 In Vietnam's ART_AND_DESIGN Top Free chart, about 12 of the top 30 are AR tracing apps: Draw Anime (two of them), Draw Cartoon, Easy Draw, AR Drawing, Sketchar, Artmate, ArSketch, AR Draw: Trace Art, ArtHub, PrismArt, AR Draw Cartoon (googleplay library chart_rank). Similar apps show up on iOS and the web too, like SketchAR, AR Drawings (ar-drawings.com), and AR Easy Draw (arteasy.app). This has been a standard tool-spam category since 2023.

**How ArtHub differs from them** : functionally there's basically no difference. All offer a camera overlay of semi-transparent templates, an anime/cartoon template library, and step-by-step tutorials. Only two differences are visible: the title is localized for ASO (the Vietnam listing title is "ArtHub: Vẽ phác thảo và đồ lại"); and the developer is a photo-editing/face-swap studio that entered this category from another one.

### 3. Growth tactics (evidence and inference)

- **Meta ads** : the metaads library returns no advertiser or app_link for this package name, nor for the Pixin homepage. However, that library only tracks advertisers on its list, so a miss doesn't mean no spend (unverified).

- **TikTok / X** : TikHub searches for "ArtHub trace draw" and "arthub app" returned nothing; x-radar has no mentions in the last 30 days. No evidence of creators or content-driven spread.

- **Store search + ASO (inference, likely)** : the title and description are packed with trace, draw, sketch, anime, and camera tracing keywords, with localized titles per storefront. Rankings cluster in low-CPM traffic markets like Vietnam, Thailand, the Philippines, Turkey, and Saudi Arabia. The flat curve with no spikes fits "search traffic + long-running Google App Campaigns".

- **Studio portfolio cross-promotion (inference)** : four developer accounts tied to the xen-studios.com domain, Pixin Studio, Pixin, XEN Studios, and Gen-Z AI Apps, have roughly 40M cumulative installs visible in the library (AI Collage Maker 13.4M, VPlay 8.26M, MiSaree 6.17M, Pixit 4.63M, CRSL 2.62M, per googleplay library). FoxData says Pixin Studio has published 20 apps. This is a typical Pakistani/Dubai tool-app studio (Tracxn: XEN Studios is headquartered in Dubai, founded in 2020, no funding; developer email saleem.aistudio@gmail.com). Interstitials and cross-promotion in photo apps can feed new apps, but there's no direct evidence.

- **Rating prompt filtering** : the 3★/5★ distribution alone suggests a custom rating prompt, used to hold the store rating at 4.8–4.9 and lift search conversion.

### 4. Visibility

Almost nobody knows about it yet. Online there are only auto-generated listing pages from Softonic, AppBrain, CNET Download, and FoxData; no media coverage, no discussion on X or TikTok, and no public revenue. But the category itself is already crowded with copycats (see the table above), and ArtHub is one of them.

### 5. Why it got this much traction

1. The category demand is real and long-lived: "learn to draw by tracing with your phone" has steady search volume among students and beginner artists in Southeast Asia, Turkey, and Latin America. The leader, Artrace, still adds 890k installs a week.

2. It picks up the tail of category search traffic through ASO keywords and localized titles, and squeezed into the top 30 in Vietnam, a storefront where the chart bar is low.

3. The studio has a ready playbook for tool apps (ads + high-priced in-app purchases + rating prompts + a multi-account portfolio), so the marginal cost of a tracing app is low.

4. It has no product differentiation. Its volume and growth trail far behind leaders like Braly, so "breaking out" doesn't hold.

### 6. What others can learn

- The copycat playbook for this category: the feature (camera overlay of templates) is simple. The hard parts are long-term ASO, localization, paid acquisition in low-cost countries, and a mixed ads + IAP monetization. Then use rating prompts to keep the score above 4.8.

- The one worth studying is the category leader Braly JSC (Vietnam): Artrace at 64.8M, and its newer Artmate reached 19.5M within two months of launch and #1 on the UK category chart. ArtHub is not.

### 7. Still unclear

- The real launch date, and whether it previously went by another name (the package contains "art.editor", which may mean an older app was repurposed). AppstoreSpy data before 06-10 isn't available.

- Whether it ran Google UAC / Meta / TikTok ads; how much was spent on acquisition, and whether payback came from ads or IAP. No data.

- Whether the ratings are filtered by an in-app prompt or more directly manipulated. Can't tell.

### Sources

- googleplay library (agent-im server, 2026-10-29 to 11-06): app_profile, app_snap, app_day_ext (AppstoreSpy estimate), chart_rank, app, developer

- metaads library advertiser / app_link (2026-11-06 queries, no records)

- Google Play page [play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.pixin.drawing.art.…](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.pixin.drawing.art.editor) (4.9★, 523 ratings, 500K+)

- FoxData [foxdata.com/en/app-marketing-analytics/com.pixin.drawing.art…](https://foxdata.com/en/app-marketing-analytics/com.pixin.drawing.art.editor/gp/US/) (version 0.21, Pixin Studio has published 20 apps)

- Tracxn XEN Studios [tracxn.com/d/companies/xen-studios/__rxBMIz8PRBTnjjsDGo6tTkt…](https://tracxn.com/d/companies/xen-studios/__rxBMIz8PRBTnjjsDGo6tTktAiv8azqC7mnRA7lGSY9k)

- AppBrain / Softonic / CNET listing pages (Jina search results)

- TikHub and x-radar searches: no results

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