It’s another record-breaking year for Pokémon as revenue reaches $1.9 billion | Pocket Gamer.biz

The Pokémon Company’s latest financials reveal the strongest year yet for the Japanese giant, having generated a record-breaking ¥297.5 billion ($1.9 billion) in the 12 months leading to February 29th, 2024.

This marks a 15% rise on Pokémon’s previous fiscal year, having generated ¥235 billion ($1.5 billion) between March 2022 and February 2023.

Not only that, but The Pokémon Company has also recorded net profit of ¥62.7 billion ($402 million), up 28% from ¥49 billion ($314 million), as reported by Dr Serkan Toto.

Supercharged sums

Like many game developers, The Pokémon Company’s earnings skyrocketed during the pandemic and surged by over 70% year-on-year into February 2022. Since then the rate of growth has slowed significantly, but unlike many fellow game makers, Pokémon power has kept the company safely out of the red.

In fact, in recent history Pokémon’s revenue has continued on breaking its own record yearly, and has done so yet again into early 2024 – reaching its highest record yet.

The latest fiscal results are that much more impressive when considering the context of the period: there were no new main series Pokémon games released on Nintendo Switch between March 2023 and February 2024.

Instead, The Pokémon Company’s leading piece of software was DLC to 2022’s Scarlet and Violet on the Switch, meanwhile development has been focused on the as-yet-unreleased Pokémon Legends: ZA.

The latest revenue figure becomes that much more intriguing when considering Scarlet and Violet sold fewer than three million copies in this fiscal year, compared to approximately 22 million the year prior.

This means that The Pokémon Company found greater financial success even in a year with fewer Nintendo Switch game sales, showcasing the swathes of money the brand makes from other avenues – of which mobile is one.

Mobile megatonnes

This record fiscal year saw the release of Pokémon Sleep, designed to accompany Pokémon fans into the dreamworld as a half game/half health app experience. According to AppMagic the mobile app made $67 million in revenue by February 29th, 2024.

Pokémon Masters EX earned $52 million – and reached $300 million in lifetime earnings – in the fiscal year, while Pokémon Go generated an estimated $837 million in the same period. Including Pokémon Unite’s $25 million, Café Remix’s $3.9 million, and Quest’s almost $1 million, mobile Pokémon titles earned just shy of $1 billion in those 12 months.

While these revenues will have been shared with other developers involved in the games – Tencent, Niantic and DeNA included – the titles undoubtedly contributed to The Pokémon Company’s ¥297.5 billion ($1.9 billion) revenue and ¥88.7 billion ($568 million) operating income through the financial year.

The broader brand

Over the Pokémon brand’s lifetime, a mighty 480 million game units and more than 64 billion trading cards have been sold. Merchandising is the franchise’s financial strong point, after all, bringing in a significant portion of its earnings each year across the cards, toys, shirts and more.

The sheer number of card sales implies a potential tidal wave of income ahead from the mobile game Pokémon Trading Card Game Pocket, currently in development with Creatures Inc and DeNA. When the game launches later this year, fans will be able to buy and collect cards digitally, with free daily digital packs incentivising everyone to play.

It’s a clear marriage of revenue streams that saw DeNA’s shares surge 24.4% within 24 hours of Pocket’s reveal.

And for The Pokémon Company, the upcoming mobile game could well contribute to another record-breaking year ahead…