An old prank app reskinned as Santa hits 580k installs in ten days
What it is A free, ad-supported app where "Santa" makes fake video calls, chats and sends letters to kids. Parents use it to surprise their children.
Why it took off Christmas demand comes back every year. Add a launch timed to the right days, titles rewritten in each language's local search terms, and low-bar category charts in small countries, and it probably also bought traffic. The product itself has nothing new.
CHow you could play it Don't copy this one. A team with an existing prank-call base can reskin on a holiday calendar, launching new packs one to two weeks early with local search terms in the titles. If you want to build a product, make a paid, personalized Santa that says the kid's name.
- Data (updated daily) · first launch 2026-10-27 · 11-07 installs 585,687
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 2026-11-02 → 2026-11-07 (6 days, 6 observations)
In Oct 27 2026, a Vietnamese developer published an app on Google Play for "video calls with a fake Santa Claus". Ten days later it had 586k cumulative installs and charted #2,26 in the lifestyle Top Free category in Brazil. The product has nothing new: it's the same developer's prank-call app from 7 with a new skin, shipped just before the Christmas season, with a local-sounding name for each language that people would actually search. This piece looks at how it was done, and whether it's still worth following now.
"muito legal as crianças amam"
In Nov 4, a Brazilian user named Lázaro Sebastião left a review on Google Play: "Very fun, the kids love it." On the same page, an Oct 31 review with 16 "helpful" votes is gibberish with "Papai Noel" repeated several times, apparently typed by a child on the phone.
That's the user: parents before Christmas handing their phone to a kid so "Santa" can video-call them. On the Brazilian store page it isn't called by its English name, Santa Prank Video Call & Chat, but "Pegadinha Ligação Papai Noel" (Santa prank call), with "#2 Free Lifestyle App" banner at the top (Google Play Brazil, 11-06).
What it is
A free app with ads and no in-app purchases. Listed features: fake video call with Santa, chat with Santa, write to Santa, Christmas photo frames, wallpapers, Christmas songs. Scrolling further down are two items unrelated to Christmas: "fake incoming calls and prank games" and "celebrity and idol pranks." Those two came over from the base app.
The developer is BearKUN Dev. The store page lists a personal name in Tuyên Quang province, Vietnam, with a Gmail contact address, and the site is hosted on GitHub Pages. It also has a heart-rate app, a video downloader, and a general prank video-call app launched in July that already has 6.15M installs (Google Play, 11-06). The Christmas version is that app reskinned.
How it took off
| Date | Total installs | What happened |
|---|---|---|
| 10-27 | — | Launched |
| 10-29 | 12k | First chart entry: Argentina Lifestyle #14 |
| 10-30 | 12k | Charted in Lifestyle in 27 countries, Brazil #4 |
| 11-02 | 432k | Brazil climbed to #2 (#1 is Pinterest) |
| 11-06 | 586k | Brazil #2, Argentina #5, South Africa #6, Mexico #9, US #18 |
Google Play installs and category chart, 10-29 to 11-06. Play's install counts update every few days; read weekly, the rate is roughly 6 to 80k per day.
Several things stack up:
- Right timing. It launched four days before Halloween, and when the Christmas season opened in early November it was the newest entry on the charts. Past lookalikes follow the same curve: Shelton Gumentol's Christmas prank from last July hit 4.82M installs over one season, and WELLY GLOBAL's version launched in November 2024 reached 3.82M and stopped growing after the season.
- One name per language. In Brazil it's "Pegadinha Ligação Papai Noel", in Latin American Spanish "Videollamada Broma Noel", in Indonesia "Panggilan Video Prank Santa
- Low bar in small-country charts. In Oct 30, when it ranked #4 in Brazil's Lifestyle category, it had only 12k cumulative installs worldwide. A new pack gains traction quickly; once it charts, more people see it and organic downloads follow.
- Probably bought traffic (inference). 7k installs in 570 days spread across 26 countries, yet no one on TikTok, X or the web is talking about this app. It doesn't show up in the Meta or Google ad libraries, but that doesn't mean it wasn't advertised. For this type of "ads, no IAP" Vietnamese utility app, the norm is to buy installs on Google and recoup through in-app ads.
One signal worth noting: only 373 ratings, adding 36 to 61 a day, a rating rate of about 0.06% against 580k installs. Most people make one call, show the kid, and never open it again.
The demand is real, and it comes back every year
On TikTok, "Santa calls kids" is an old format: a Spanish video titled "Llamada de Santa Claus para niñ@s" hit 13.9M views in December 2023, and another one hit 6.1M in December 2025. The account @santa.prank.call posted "kids absolutely love this Christmas call" last November, and it reached 3.8M (TikTok, search 11-06). This October 15 already has a new one at 580K views.
Established products prove it too: Portable North Pole has run since 2014, has 31.7M installs on Play, makes realistic personalized videos and charges subscriptions. Era Global's Christmas prank, launched in 2023, has 33.2M installs and hasn't charted this year (Google Play, 11-06).
Where the money comes from
Ads only. No in-app purchases, so it won't show on the grossing charts, and revenue isn't public. The math: near-zero dev cost (the base app is already built), and each user only needs to see a few interstitial or app-open ads to cover acquisition cost. Once Dec 25 passes and the traffic dries up, the package has done its job. How much it actually made is anyone's guess from the outside.
Who it's competing with
It's a copycat itself. This category is packed with reskins every year.
| Product | Platform | Scale | Approach |
|---|---|---|---|
| Santa Prank Call: Fake video(Era Global) | Android | 33.2M installs, not charting this year | Same-genre leader |
| Portable North Pole | Android / iOS | Play: 31.7M installs; iOS 50k ratings | Personalized video, subscription revenue |
| Santa Claus Prank Call & Chat(Shelton Gumentol) | Android | 4.82M, not growing this year | Last year's seasonal reskin |
| Call Santa Claus & Prank Call(WELLY GLOBAL) | Android | 3.82M, not growing this year | The year before's seasonal reskin |
| Santa Prank Call: Voice AIChat(Vu Van Phong) | iOS | 1,880 rating; running 124 ads on Meta | AI voice focus, public paid acquisition |
| santaai.site | Web / iOS / Android | Posts daily on TikTok, separate accounts for Spanish, Portuguese and French | AI says the kid's name, human-like calls, free trial |
| Recado de Natal | Web (Brazil) | TikTok, one video with 10k views | Personalized video that calls the kid by name, Pix payment, 24-hour delivery |
Figures from Google Play, App Store, the Meta ad library and TikTok, 11-06.
The bigger family is holiday-agnostic prank calls: idol pranks, celebrity pranks, horror calls. The top few each have between 10M and 30M installs, and the publishers are mostly small outfits from Vietnam, India and the Philippines.
Notice the last two rows of the table: this year some have started offering AI-personalized Santa, who can say the kid's name, age, city, even hold a "real-time conversation," and charge for it. Their TikTok views are still small, in the tens to hundreds.
If it were you
Verdict: Building a Christmas prank app to copy isn't worth it. It's a factory category that shows up every year and fills up every year. Winners rely on an existing base, multi-language rollouts, real acquisition spend, and precise timing. Today is Nov 6, seven weeks before Christmas, and building, submitting and getting a new pack to traction is already tight. What's worth learning is the playbook, not the app.
Who it's for: small teams that already have a prank, simulated-call or kids' entertainment base and know Google paid acquisition and AdMob monetization. For you, this is a holiday-calendar exercise.
Who it's not for: indie developers hoping to win on the product alone. There's no retention here; users try it once and leave, and word of mouth doesn't build up.
How to do it:
- Treat it as a calendar, not a product. One prank-call engine, with Santa, the Easter Bunny, the Tooth Fairy, Halloween ghosts, Children's Day and local holiday characters for each country. Launch a new pack one to two weeks before each holiday, and let it sit after the season.
- Titles in the words locals search. In Brazil, use pegadinha / ligação / papai noel; in Latin America, broma / videollamada / papá noel. Don't use the English name.
- Pick the low-bar charts. Lifestyle plus countries like Brazil, Argentina and South Africa. A new pack with tens of thousands of installs can reach the top 10, which brings free exposure first.
- If you don't want to compete on volume, do what it doesn't do well: a paid, personalized Santa. Parents want "Santa says my kid's name," and a reskinned prank can't deliver that. santaai.site and Recado de Natal have started, but both are still small. Enter through a language or country they haven't covered.
How to get users: reskinned packs rely on store search, category charts and Google paid acquisition. A paid personalized product relies on TikTok: videos of "how a kid reacts to a Santa call" get millions of views every year, and parents' own reaction videos are the best ads.
Before when: This season. Get it live before mid-November and it can still catch the December peak. If it's too late, build the engine now and aim for Easter, or mid-October next year.
What would mean I got it wrong: If this December app's installs grew by more than 5M and its ratings grew faster than its installs, then it has retention beyond the prank novelty, and the reskin value was underestimated. The reverse: if AI personalized products like santaai.site didn't produce a single TikTok video going viral in December, then parents aren't willing to pay for this, and approach #4 doesn't hold.
Research notes: competitor table, acquisition evidence, full research report
- Competitors
Name Where Launched Scale How it differs from this one Santa Prank Call: Fake video(Era Global Publishing) Android 2023-10-15 33.2M installs, +50k over 7 days, not on any chart right now An old leader in the same category that didn't chart this year; BearKUN landed chart spots with a fresh package and localized titles Call & Video from Santa: PNP(Portable North Pole) Android 2014-12-05 Play 31.7M installs, 558k ratings, #110 in France's Entertainment Top Grossing; 50k ratings on iOS Legit brand, personalized video, subscription pricing; BearKUN is a free, ad-supported prank tool Santa Claus Prank Call & Chat(Shelton Gumentol) Android 2025-07-03 4.82M installs, no growth this year Last year's seasonal reskin, same playbook; it stops growing once the season is over Call Santa Claus & Prank Call(WELLY GLOBAL PUBLISHING) Android 2024-11-16 3.82M installs, no growth this year A holiday release from a Vietnamese publisher in the same niche, same playbook Santa Prank Call: Voice AIChat(Vu Van Phong) iOS 2025-12-09 1,880 ratings, +525 over 7 days; Meta has 124 ads running (metaads 2026-11-06) Same kind of app on iOS, buying paid acquisition heavily on Meta, pitched as "AI voice"; BearKUN is Play-only Call Santa Claus! create video(First Class Media) iOS 2014-12-09 62k ratings An old iOS-native video app Papá Noel Llamada en Español(Wishes For All) Android 2023-08-03 260k installs Spanish-only single-language packages; BearKUN is one package with titles localized per language to cover multiple countries Santa video-call sites like natalviasatelite.com.br Web historical Brazil's g1 covered a free Santa video-call website 2023 years ago Web-only and free, no store distribution Video Call Prank - Fake Call (BearKUN's own master version) Android 2026-07-09 6.15M installs A generic prank call app; the Christmas version is its reskin - Where users come from
- Verified holiday-timed new release: 10-27 went live, 10-310k installs started climbing after Halloween, 11-02 single-count +379k; past comparable apps all peaked in one season and stopped growing after.
- Verified store search / localized ASO: store page titles changed per language: pt_BR "Pegadinha Ligação Papai Noel", es_419 "Videollamada Broma Noel", id "Panggilan Video Prank Santa"; strongest in Brazil (Lifestyle #2).
- Verified chart exposure (low bar in small-country category charts): 10-30 had only 11.7k global installs when it hit #4 in Brazil Lifestyle; charted in 27 countries' Lifestyle from 10-30 onward.
- Verified master-version reskin / developer portfolio: same developer's Video Call Prank - Fake Call (2026-76.2M installs); the description still mentions Idol & Celebrity Prank; the com.an.* package prefix matches LordEagle JSC's apps.
- Inferred paid acquisition (Google App Campaigns etc.): 7 days of 570k installs across 26 countries at once, yet no organic spread can be found; no Meta ad library ad lands on this package name, and googleads doesn't track it. Just an inference.
Why Santa Prank Video Call & Chat (BearKUN Dev) showed up
- Channel: Google Play, package name com.santa.prankcall.customize.chat.funny.stimulator, category Lifestyle
- Developer: BearKUN Dev (Play contact email [email protected]; promo videos uploaded to the YouTube channel "Van Soan Duong", looks like a Vietnamese individual or small team; privacy page at sites.google.com/view/bearkun-policy, website bearkun-studio.github.io)
- Released: 2026-10-27 (data card); store page shows 500K+ downloads, 4.2 stars, 399 ratings, "Contains ads", no in-app purchases, 2026-11-06 updated recently 2026-11-05
- Research date: 2026-11-06
Bottom line
It's not new. It's Vietnam's "prank tool factory" playbook, rerun on a holiday schedule: start from the generic "Video Call Prank - Fake Call", which had already reached 6.15M installs, reskin it as Santa, launch in late October (just after Halloween, as the Christmas season begins), localize the store titles per language ("Pegadinha Ligação Papai Noel" in Brazil, "Videollamada Broma Noel" in Latin America), monetize with ads, low cost, and push volume. New apps have a very low bar on small-country Lifestyle charts, so it quickly broke into the 26-country rankings. The real drivers are timing (season) + distribution playbook (reskin, localized ASO, very likely paid acquisition). The product itself has no moat.
1. Data (source: googleplay library app_day / chart_rank, 2026-10-29 to 11-06)
| Date | Total installs | Daily increase | Score |
|---|---|---|---|
| 10-29 | 11,705 | — | — |
| 10-31 | 53,490 | +41,785 | — |
| 11-02 | 432,465 | +378,975 | 193 |
| 11-03 | 496,254 | +63,789 | 235 |
| 11-05 | 585,687 | +89,433 | 312 |
| 11-06 | 585,687 | 0 | 373 |
- 7 days of new installs 573,982 (app_profile.installs_gain_7d). Play's install counter updates every few days, so single-day figures swing; weekly is more reliable: roughly 6–80k a day.
- Charts: 10-29 first charted (Argentina Lifestyle #14); 10-30 already on 27 countries' Lifestyle free charts; Brazil Lifestyle rose from #4 at 10-30 to #2 from 11-02 onward (#1 is Pinterest), 11-06 still at #2. 11-06 Other countries: Argentina #5, South Africa #6, Mexico #9, Vietnam #11, Indonesia #13, US #18. It also charted on the overall app charts in Brazil, Argentina and Turkey (best was #108 overall in Argentina).
- The bar is low: when 10-30 hit #4 in Brazil Lifestyle, it had only 11.7k total global installs. The Brazil Lifestyle chart has a low entry bar, and new apps get heavy weighting for velocity.
- Rating growth: 36–61 a day. Compared with 50 million installs, the rating rate is very low (about 0.06%), suggesting most users are one-time, not retained. The library has only 2 reviews (Argentina, 10-30: one 1-star "not fun", one 5-star "recommended").
2. Competitors
Many apps do "fake video call / call from Santa", and they show up every year. It's an old category:
| Product | Platform | Launched | Scale (source) | How it differs |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Santa Prank Call: Fake video(Era Global Publishing) | Android | 2023-10-15 | 33.2M installs, +50k over 7 days, not on any chart right now (googleplay library) | The leading old app in this same category, living off volume built in past years; it hasn't charted this year. BearKUN is riding "new release + freshness". |
| Call & Video from Santa: PNP(Portable North Pole,UGroupMedia) | Android / iOS / web | 2014 | Play 31.7M installs, 558k ratings; #110 in France's Entertainment Top Grossing; 50k ratings on iOS | Legit brand, realistic personalized video, subscription pricing; BearKUN is a free, ad-supported prank tool |
| Santa Claus Prank Call & Chat(Shelton Gumentol) | Android | 2025-07-03 | 4.82M installs, no growth this year | The standout from last year's seasonal reskin wave: nearly 5M in one quarter, and it stopped growing once the season ended |
| Call Santa Claus & Prank Call(WELLY GLOBAL PUBLISHING) | Android | 2024-11-16 | 3.82M installs, no growth this year | Same as above: a holiday release from a Vietnamese publisher |
| Santa Prank Call: Voice AIChat(Vu Van Phong) | iOS | 2025-12-09 | 1,880 ratings, +525 over 7 days; Meta's "PrankCall Santa - AI Prank App" homepage has 124 ads running (metaads library, 2026-11-06) | A similar iOS app buying paid acquisition heavily on Meta (mostly video, targeting the US, UK, Germany and Japan), pitched as "AI voice"; also run by Vietnamese developers. |
| Call Santa Claus! create video(First Class Media) | iOS | 2014 | 62k ratings | An old iOS-native video app |
| Papá Noel Llamada en Español(Wishes For All) | Android | 2023-08-03 | 260k installs | Spanish only; BearKUN is one package covering languages by changing the title |
| Websites: natalviasatelite.com.br, videocallsanta.com, etc. | Web | historical | Brazil's g1 covered a free Santa video-call website 2023 years ago | Web-only and free, no store distribution |
| BearKUN's own Video Call Prank - Fake Call | Android | 2026-07-09 | 6.15M installs (googleplay library) | Its "master" version: a generic prank video call, with the Christmas version just re-skinned |
Generic prank calls in the same niche (idols / celebrities / horror): Idol Prank Video Call & Chat (HIGAME, 32.1M), Prank Video Call - Fake Chat (Shelton Gumentol, 28.9M, also charted in Brazil Lifestyle), Viral Prank Video Call & Chat (Noobgame, 6.18M), Scary Prank Call (Joy Buzz, 13M). It's a mature factory-style category, with developers mostly small publishers from Vietnam, India and the Philippines.
3. Growth tactics (evidence)
- Holiday-timed release (confirmed): 10-27 went live, and 10-310k installs started climbing right after Halloween. Past comparable apps followed the same seasonal curve (Shelton's 2025 release and WELLY's 2024 reached 400–5M in a single season, then stopped once it ended).
- Reskinning a master version (confirmed): the same developer's "Video Call Prank - Fake Call", released in July, already has 6.15M installs; the Christmas version's description still mentions master-version features like "Idol & Celebrity Prank" and "Fake Calls & Prank Games"; the store's "same developer" list also links them together. Package prefix: the master and heart-rate apps use com.an.*, and the same prefix appears on other apps like LordEagle JSC's (Vietnam JSC) Broken Screen Prank (2026-07-12), suggesting the same outsourcing or publishing chain (unverified).
- ASO with per-language localized titles (confirmed, from 2026-11-06's captured store pages): pt_BR "Pegadinha Ligação Papai Noel", es_419 "Videollamada Broma Noel", id "Panggilan Video Prank Santa", the rest in the English original. Brazil is its strongest market, and the Portuguese title directly hits search terms like "pegadinha / ligação / papai noel". Searching Google for "pegadinha ligação papai noel app" returns the Play page of the similar Era Global app as the first result, with utm_term in the link, showing this is a real search term.
- Paid acquisition (likely, not directly confirmed): 7 days of 570k installs spread across 26 countries, yet TikTok, X and the web show no organic spread for this app (TikHub searches for "santa prank call" and "pegadinha papai noel ligação" found no hot videos featuring it in the last 7 days; x-radar had 0 posts in the last 30 days; web searches for BearKUN turned up no media coverage). The Meta ad library has no ad landing on this package name (metaads only tracks Pages discovered via keywords, so absence isn't proof). It's also not on the googleads list (untracked doesn't mean not running). The norm for these "Contains ads, no IAP" Vietnamese tool apps is Google App Campaigns + AdMob monetization, but that's still an inference.
- The new-app chart effect (confirmed): the small-country Lifestyle chart bar is low (12k installs was enough for #4 in Brazil), and once charted, the app gets more store visibility and more organic downloads.
4. Why it took off
- The demand recurs every year: during the Christmas season parents want to give their kids a "call from Santa", and the search terms are stable (PNP hit 30M+ in 11 years, Era Global's version 33M).
- Timing is precise: launched in the last week of October, charting in early November as the season starts, before the older versions get updated.
- Very low cost: the master version already exists, so reskinning, localizing titles and uploading videos involve almost no R&D; ad monetization means each user only needs to see a few interstitials to pay back.
- Localized titles put it at the top of Brazilian and Latin American Spanish-language searches; Brazil delivered its Lifestyle #2.
5. Differentiation
Almost no product-level differentiation: the features (fake video calls, chat, letters, photo frames, wallpapers, music) match its peers, and it bundles the "idol prank" master-version features too. What's different is distribution: a fresh package + holiday timing + per-language titles + simultaneous rollout across 26 countries. Those are why it broke through, not the product itself. Its weaknesses are also clear: low rating rate, few reviews, and installs essentially dropping to zero after December 25.
6. Visibility
Nobody's talking about it yet: no web, X, or TikTok buzz about this app or BearKUN, and revenue isn't public. But the category itself is well known, and it gets flooded with reskins every year.
7. What to borrow
- "Universal master + holiday / character reskins": one prank-call engine that can be swapped into Santa, the Easter Bunny, the Tooth Fairy, Halloween ghosts, or idols, with new packs shipped 1–2 weeks ahead of each holiday calendar.
- Each language's store title uses the local search term (pegadinha / broma / papai noel), not the English name.
- Pick categories with low chart thresholds (Lifestyle) and countries (Brazil, Argentina, South Africa) where a new pack with a few tens of thousands of installs can reach the 10 and get free exposure.
- Revenue model: free + ads, no in-app purchases, suited to short-cycle, high-traffic, low-retention seasonal apps.
8. Still unclear
- Whether it's buying paid acquisition, and how much: Meta / Google ad libraries show no direct record of it.
- Ad revenue: no Top Grossing rank (no IAP to begin with), eCPM unknown.
- Whether BearKUN has any link to LordEagle JSC, Era Global, or WELLY. We only have clues from the package name prefix and nationality.
- How high December can go, and whether it gets pulled or switched to another holiday after Christmas.
Sources
- googleplay library (agent-im server DuckDB): app_profile, app_day, chart_rank, developer, review, as of 2026-11-06
- appstore library: ratings count for comparable iOS apps (2026-11-06)
- metaads library: Page 1337002826160132 "PrankCall Santa - AI Prank App", ads_active=124, landing apps.apple.com id6755428521
- Google Play store page play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.santa.prankcall.cu… (hl=en/pt_BR/es_419/id, fetched 2026-11-06)
- YouTube promo video www.youtube.com/watch?v=_kMiO64tUr4 (by Van Soan Duong)
- iTunes lookup id6755428521
- Jina search for "BearKUN Dev", "Santa Prank Video Call & Chat", "Pegadinha Ligação Papai Noel app"; g1 coverage g1.globo.com/sp/campinas-regiao/noticia/2023/12/16/veja-como…
- TikHub TikTok search (last 7 days) and x-radar (last 30 days) both returned no content about this app