3,085 installs squeezed into #8 on Turkey's Top Grossing: how a number-verification app charted, and why it's not worth copying

A Turkish prepaid-card seller set up a UK company and packaged a wholesale verification-number platform into an app, selling credit packs at $4.99–$54.99. With about three thousand installs, it reached #8 on Turkey's Google Play Communication Top Grossing chart. Below: what it actually sells, why the chart was so easy to climb, how it gets users, and why you probably shouldn't copy it.

The day of Nov 4

On Nov 4, 2026, an app called "SMSVirtual - Virtual Number" on Google Play hit #8 on Turkey's Communication Top Grossing chart, up from #11 two days earlier. That day its cumulative global installs were 3,085, with no change from the day before (Google Play installs, 11-04). By 11-06 it had also climbed from #193 to #142 on Turkey's overall Top Grossing chart.

An app with no ratings, no reviews, and only twenty or thirty new installs a day was earning money alongside older products with millions of installs. The developer is EPINKO LIMITED, and the first store listing went live in Aug 2026, 22.

What it sells

A disposable phone number for receiving verification codes. People sign up for WhatsApp, Telegram, Instagram, and foreign services that require a phone number, and they buy one here if they don't want to use their own or can't register with it. The flow is the standard three steps: pick a service, pick a country, wait for the SMS. The homepage lists three selling points: "No code in 17 minutes, balance refunded", "Bank cards via 3D Secure", and "Crypto top-ups get a 10% bonus". It offers 812 services (smsvirtual.pro, 11-06).

The numbers aren't its own. Its privacy policy names the upstream supplier as Hero-SMS, a wholesale verification platform that says it took over the SMS-Activate inventory, covers 180+ countries, and openly recruits resellers. The service icons on the site are named after the upstream provider, such as hero-tg and hero-wa. The backend is Firebase, and in-app purchases go through RevenueCat. Put simply, it's a shell: buy a verification code at wholesale, mark it up through credit packs in the store, and the markup is where the revenue comes from.

Who built it: the same team doing it a second time

epinko.com is a game prepaid-card seller in Adana, Turkey. Since 2021 it has sold E-Pins, CD keys, and in-game currency, and claims more than 1M sales. It was already running digital micro-goods with local payments.

In January 2026, its Turkish entity had already shipped a nearly identical app called "SMSVia" on Google Play and the App Store. The iOS version reached #47 on Latvia's Top Grossing category chart. In May 8, it registered the UK company EPINKO LIMITED at a virtual office address in London (Companies House no. 17207830). In August, the new entity launched the same product under a new brand: SMSVirtual on Android and SMS Virtual on iOS.

Same team, new company, new brand, second launch of the same type of product. It occupies more store slots and spreads the risk of removal (inference).

Why three thousand installs were enough to chart

Look at the install trend: in early September it added roughly 117 a day, and by late October only 18–36 (a third-party estimate of the curve since launch). New installs kept falling while its rank kept rising. That doesn't mean it got popular. Two things are going on:

First, the bar on Turkey's chart is low. The lira has depreciated, the Play paid market is small, and a few thousand installs plus a handful of heavy spenders is enough to reach #8 in Communication. It also ranks #77–#84 on the Communication Top Grossing charts in 12 other countries, but those positions are near the bottom and don't say much.

Second, verification apps naturally have few installs and heavy spending. People who need a code pay right away, a few dollars per order, with no retention needed. Among the top 25 on Turkey's Communication Top Grossing chart, verification and virtual-number apps take up a large share (Google Play, 11-06):

So "low installs, high rank" here mostly reflects a low bar, not high revenue. Its monthly revenue is likely in the low thousands of dollars (estimate, unverified).

Where users come from

I searched around, and the verifiable channels are all in the store and on the website. Social media shows nothing: searching "smsvirtual" on TikTok only returns other sellers' videos, and in the last 30 days there were 0 posts on X mentioning it or SMSVia.

• Store search ads. The privacy policy spells it out: on iOS it uses Apple Search Ads attribution to capture campaign, ad group, keyword, and country; on Android it uses the install referrer to match its own ads; and RevenueCat is also wired for attribution so each payment can be tied to a specific keyword. This setup means it buys traffic by keyword and tracks payback. How much it spends isn't visible from outside.
• A name that rides on a big brand. On Google Play there is "SMS Virtual - Receive SMS" (Tecrow Apps, website smsvirtual.org), listed in 2023 with 3.71M installs. epinko's app is called SMSVirtual, with the website smsvirtual.pro. People searching "sms virtual" may be partly routed to it. Whether that's intentional, or how much traffic it brings, isn't known.
• Bilingual site + web top-ups. smsvirtual.pro has English and Turkish landing pages (sanal-telefon-numarasi, sanal-numara-kiralama). In Oct 26 it published several blog posts at once: how to verify on Instagram, what to do when no code arrives, and the difference between burner numbers and virtual numbers. Web payments accept cards and crypto, which avoids the store's 15–30% commission.
• Referral credits. The privacy policy mentions credits, referrals, and rewards, and it uses device fingerprinting to prevent abuse.

How it differs from others

On the product itself, there's almost nothing different. The numbers come from the same wholesale pool, the flow is standard, and the only distinctions it can claim are "no account registration", "an extra disposable email", and "sold as credit packs, not subscriptions". Its edge is all in distribution and packaging: a brand portfolio, search ads, a near-identical name to a big brand, and web payments that skip the commission. Those are what get it onto the charts.

Competition has two layers. Direct rivals are the verification apps listed above, plus cheaper sites like Hero-SMS, 5sim, and OnlineSim, and free verification sites that publish numbers and often get blocked. Adjacent are the long-term second-number apps TextNow, TextMe (62M installs), Dingtone (53M), and TalkU, which sell subscriptions and support calling. On the big-platform side, Google Voice is limited to the US, and Apple's Hide My Email doesn't cover phone numbers, so no one is serving this niche right now.

If it were you

C: a playbook worth learning, but copying it isn't worth it. This is an old, crowded category. The upstream wholesale platforms openly recruit resellers, so anyone can plug in and you get the same inventory as everyone else. It is itself a follower, and it's following for the second time.

Who it suits: Teams already experienced with local payments and digital micro-goods (like epinko, which already sold prepaid cards), with search-ad buying capability, who want an extra store slot in a country with a low paid bar. For them it's a product line with very low marginal cost.

Who it doesn't suit: Indie developers who want to win on product experience (there's no product difference to build on here); anyone who can't run Apple Search Ads or Google App campaigns; anyone who can't tolerate the app being removed at any time. Tecrow's other similar app disappeared from Google Play in February 2026. Verification numbers are often used for bulk account registration, which violates platform terms, and stores are getting stricter.

How to do it (if you still want to): Don't build number verification itself. Take the structure: find a per-order digital product with a wholesale API (eSIM data packs, proxy IPs, gift cards), pick a country where local-language offerings are weak and the Play Top Grossing bar is low, price through a store shell plus credit packs, and add card and crypto top-ups on the web.

How to acquire users: Copy its setup. On day one, connect Apple Search Ads attribution and RevenueCat, buy traffic on local-language keywords like "sanal numara", and work backward from per-order margin to set bids. At the same time, build a local-language landing page and a few "no code received, what now" style search articles.

Is there a window: No window to rush for. The category has been crowded for several years. If you do try it, first test one country with under $500 in search ads. If you can't reach positive payback within two weeks, stop.

What would mean you got it wrong: ① SMSVirtual stays in the top 10 of Turkey's Communication Top Grossing for over a month while installs keep falling. That would mean repeat purchases from existing users bring in more than expected, so unit price and retention deserve a fresh look. ② epinko launches a third or fourth similar brand, which would show the shell model really pays and is worth another look. ③ The reverse: SMSVirtual or SMSVia is removed from Google Play. That would mean this path is closing.

Data and sources

• Store data: Google Play store pages and charts (Communication Top Grossing in Turkey and 12 other countries, Turkey overall Top Grossing), 2026-11-02 through 11-06. Install curves are third-party estimates.
• App Store: SMS Virtual - Virtual Number (listed under id 6799785867,2026-08-24), SMSVia and other apps under Epinko.
• Website: smsvirtual.pro homepage and Turkish pages (11-06), privacy policy (version 2026-08-21), sitemap.
• Company: UK Companies House 17207830; epinko.com/hakkimizda, sikayetvar.
• Upstream and same-name products: hero-sms.com; smsvirtual.org, AppBrain (record of Tecrow's old app's removal).
• Social media: TikTok and X searches for "smsvirtual / smsvia", 2026-11-06, none featuring this product.
• Where it says "estimate," "inferred" or "unverified," that's what it is.