I had the same problem. Following command worked for me:
After the ./gradlew bundleRelease command we get a .aab version of our app. To get APK, you should run the app with release version on any device with the below command.
- Make sure you have connected an android device
- For the production ready app, firstly you have to remove the previous app from the device
Run this command in your-project/:
react-native run-android --variant=release
Then APK can be found in android/app/build/outputs/apk/release
Hope this helps