Sudden strange spike in app downloads from china on iTunesConnect?

Question

Several years ago I released an app (a free game) for iOS, which was largely unsucessful, settling to around an average of 5 downloads a month (terrible, I know). However, I recently happend to notice a huge (relatively) spike in downloads, up to around 300 downloads over the last 10 days.

Something seems strange about this latest batch of downloads however, for one thing they are all from China (My app is only localized for English, and never marketed outside the U.S.), and the "Active devices (opt-in only)" statistic shows 3 devices used over that same time period.

Even stranger, the "Product Page Views" statistic shows only 6 views over this same period that had 300 downloads?!

Is something nefarious going on, or might there be a benign explanation for this huge spike in downloads?

If anyone is curious, or if it helps find the cause, the app is Acorn Mayhem, as found here. (Note: this is not intended as self promotion, and if including the link violates stack overflow rules, feel free to edit it out)

in response to being put on hold: This question appears to have been put on hold as "off topic", I don't belive it should be, it does involve tools used directly and exclusively for programming (iTunes connect, which is only used by programmers) It would not be seen by the people who actually use it if it was on superuser, and I think the number of other people who have experienced the same problem and replied in a short time shows that it is on topic and helpful to a large portion of the programming community.

There is a thread on Apple forums about the issue https://forums.developer.apple.com/thread/84146

Answer 1

I reported this to Apple yesterday through iTunesConnect and received a call back today (my spike started 8/16 and is just starting to trail off now). They are investigating this; the call lasted over 10 minutes. They promised to keep me in the loop so I will report back when I hear something.

Answer 2

same here too. a game I released a year ago had very few downloads. Over the last two months I have seen a slight increase in downloads, 1 or 2, maybe up to 5 per day, all from China. All of a sudden in the last week I have seen 50, 80, and yesterday it peaked at 123 downloads.

I should also mention, this is a free game, with AdMob adverts.

Either the people who download the game aren't actually playing it at all (not one single ad show in China) or AdMob just doesn't work in China ???

either way - I've had about 500 downloads in the last week compared to ~300 in the entire previous year.

there is an IAP to upgrade the game and remove ads, needless to say, not one single user has paid.

a very strange situation. I wish I knew what was driving the Chinese downloads but I can't find anything pointing to my game ?! Also iTunes Connect seems to say they are coming from store browsing ?!

curiouser and curiouser ...