Indonesia music chart #4, ranked just behind Spotify, is a ringtone app: how a Vietnamese app factory rode an old template to the top

Phone Ringtones & HD Wallpaper launched Oct 9. By Nov 6 it had about 99k installs, and in the last 7 days it added 71k. From Nov 2 it held steady at #4 on the Indonesia Google Play Music & Audio free chart, between Spotify, StarMaker, and YouTube Music. The product itself has nothing new. Ringtones, notification sounds, HD wallpapers: hundreds of Play apps offer the same features. It rose for two reasons, and followers can copy only half of them: it picked a low-bar chart, and it has a matrix of apps behind it with over 20 million installs. Below: where the traffic comes from, where the money comes from, who's competing, and whether you should follow.

"The ads are just a few seconds, under a minute."

Oct 24, an Indonesian user gave it 5 stars with a review longer than most: "This app is great. There are ads at first, but the ringtones are really unique, and the ads are short, just a few seconds, under a minute." Three days earlier another person gave 5 stars, with a different ending: "Cool ringtones, too bad the ads are too long." On Oct 29 someone wrote: "Just tried it, looks cool, but why is it now paid?" Another said only: "Old-school ringtones, I like them."

These reviews cover nearly everything about the app: its users are Android users in Indonesia who want fun, nostalgic ringtones; every ringtone set triggers an ad; and users can pay to skip ads. No one complains about functionality. The complaints are all about ads.

What it is

A ringtone and wallpaper bundle: incoming-call ringtones, notification sounds (sorted into funny, romantic, pop, and remix), per-contact ringtones, HD wallpapers (pets, anime, landscapes), and favorites. The store page says "contains ads, in-app purchases." The in-app purchase is $2.99–$19.99 per item, most likely for removing ads and unlocking content (inferred).

The store description has a whole section called "Silly Smile Wallpapers," goofy smiley-face wallpapers. This isn't random: the same developer account has Fun Smile Silly Live Wallpaper, launched in January this year, with 7.37M installs (Google Play install count, 11-06). The new app reuses the old hit's assets directly. The version number at launch was 2.0, which suggests a ready-made template with a new package name.

Who made it

The developer is "Anderson Tony," which sounds like a person but is really an app factory. The account on Play lists 11 apps: PDF scanner, live wallpapers, deleted-message recovery, LED scrolling sign, AR drawing, live scores, AI photo retouching, emulators, AI voice changer, GIF converter, and more. The LED scrolling sign has 10.1M installs, Silly Smile wallpapers 7.37M, and message recovery 5M, totaling over 20 million across a few apps. AppBrain says the account has been active since 2019 years ago, with about 30M installs.

Several apps use the package name com.lutech.*. The privacy policy on andersontony.dev opens with "Anderson Tony is an App development and App publisher company. We deliver Apps to almost all app stores all over the world," which is nearly word-for-word identical to the privacy policy on the website of LUTECH, a Vietnamese company in Da Nang (LinkedIn lists 51–200 employees, doing mobile games and apps). So it's most likely LUTECH, or a Vietnamese team sharing its templates (inferred, unverified). The same account also links to several different developer websites and email addresses, rotating multiple packages within one theme. That's an old playbook of Vietnamese factories.

Where the traffic comes from

A low-bar chart. Indonesia is a big Android market, but few independent apps can compete on its Music & Audio free chart. By daily installs, the app adds about 1.2–13k installs globally each day (Google Play install count, 11-03 to 11-06), which is enough to rank #4 on the Indonesia music chart, while it ranked only #102 on the overall Indonesia apps chart over the same period. Its rank went 27 (10-29) → 8 (10-31) → 4 (from 11-02). Once it climbed, chart exposure and "similar apps" recommendations brought in some organic traffic.

Almost certainly buying traffic. The first review arrived 10 days after launch. Installs then rose in steps, and countries were added one at a time: Indonesia first, then Malaysia (ranked #22–31 on the Malaysia music chart), later France (125 → 63), Singapore (around 100), and the US (115–182). The pattern looks like Google App Ads run country by country. Searches of the available Google and Meta ad records found nothing, but those records are incomplete, so absence isn't proof of no spend (inferred).

Legacy apps feed traffic (inferred). Silly Smile and the LED scrolling sign still add several thousand to 20,000 installs a day. They monetize through ads, and their own app-open and interstitial placements can promote the new app at almost no cost.

Ratings have been managed. As of Nov 6, its star distribution was: 5 stars 329, 4 stars 54, 3 stars 0, 2 stars 0, 1 stars 109. There are zero 2 and 3-star ratings, which isn't normal. It looks like the app has a prompt that sends happy users to the store to rate and routes unhappy ones to in-app feedback, or the ratings are fake (inferred, unverified). The result is that the store page has stayed at 4.0.

No TikTok. Searching its name and the Indonesian "funny ringtones" on TikTok turns up creator videos for other apps (Garage Ringtones, Nota Ringtones), none naming this one. No media coverage, no discussion on X, only auto-generated chart pages from AppBrain and appfigures.

Where the money comes from

Opening and interstitial ads, plus a one-time in-app purchase to remove ads. It hasn't entered any country's Top Grossing chart, so in-app purchase revenue is probably small and ads carry most of it (inferred). Ad rates in Indonesia are low globally, but install costs are low too. For apps like this, the math is whether a user's ad views outweigh what you paid to acquire them. Behind this account are several similar apps with millions of installs, so the team has likely already worked out that math, which is why they're willing to add countries one at a time (inferred).

Who's competing

It's crowded.

At least 11 new apps with "ringtone" in the title have launched since May this year. This one added the most installs in 7 days (71k; second place, Ringo, 34k), but functionally it doesn't differ from the others. It wins on distribution, not product.

If it were you

C. You can learn a chart-climbing tactic here, but copying a ringtone app isn't worth it. The category is saturated, and what this app used to climb (legacy-app traffic and ready-made acquisition and monetization experience) is probably something you don't have.

Who it suits: small teams that already run ad-monetized tools or wallpaper apps, buy Google App Ads, and can work out how many ad views an Indonesian user is worth. For you, it's another app package you can build from a template at very low cost.

Who it doesn't suit: indie developers shipping their first app, with no existing traffic, who haven't bought Google App Ads. There's no product moat here. What you build will look like the dozen apps in the table above, and you can only compete on acquisition cost, which the factories will beat.

How to do it: don't copy the ringtones, copy the chart selection method. Look for free charts that pair "a big Android market × an underserved category" (music, personalization, or utilities in Indonesia, Vietnam, the Philippines, Brazil, or Turkey), and check how many daily installs it takes to reach ranks 3–10. Pick one where roughly 10,000 daily installs gets you into the top 5, then build a localized version from the template you know best. If you must do ringtones, make what this one doesn't: funny ringtones in local languages, nostalgic classic ringtones (reviewers specifically said they like "old-school ringtones"), or holiday ringtones.

How to acquire users: run Google App Ads country by country on a small budget, and once you reach the top 5 in your category, check how much organic traffic it adds. Also run TikTok. Garage Ringtones and Nota have both shown that Indonesian creators can drive installs with a short clip of a funny ringtone, which is exactly the part this app hasn't done. Add a rating-routing prompt in the app that sends unhappy users to in-app feedback instead of the store. That has a large effect on store conversion.

Timing: if you target Indonesia, launch before the start of Ramadan in early February of 2027 (inferred: around Ramadan and Eid, religious and holiday-themed ringtones and wallpapers are ready-made content hooks).

Signs you misread it: (1) if it drops out of the top 20 on the Indonesia music chart within a few weeks of stopping spend, the chart's organic traffic can't hold it up, and climbing was just burning money; (2) if same-template newcomers like Ringo and Playtone squeeze into the top 5 on similar daily installs, the factories have locked onto this chart and the bar will rise quickly; (3) conversely, if it's still holding the top 5 a month from now with daily installs steady, ad returns in this category are better than they look, and teams with a ready-made matrix should move quickly.

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Data and sources: Google Play store pages (read 11-06), Google Play daily installs and rating counts (10-29 to 11-06), Google Play country category charts (10-29 to 11-06), Google Play Indonesia user reviews (10-20 to 10-31, originally in Indonesian, Chinese is a paraphrase); developer page play.google.com/store/apps/developer?id=Anderson+Tony; privacy policies at andersontony.dev and lutech.vn; AppBrain developer page; TikTok search (11-06). The relationship between Anderson Tony and LUTECH, ad buying, traffic funneling, and rating routing are all inferences.