Pokémon Day 2025: Just how big a deal are Pokémon’s mobile games?

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Pokémon Day is here again as the Pokémon franchise celebrates 29 years since the original Game Boy release of Red and Green in Japan.

The annual celebration is a well-established tradition at this point, commemorating each anniversary with a Pokémon Presents presentation that highlights everything from Pokémon Go to the main series games and even the occasional new animated series.

Of course, as the Pokémon series’ mobile games catalogue has continued to expand, the platform’s presence has also grown more prevalent across these yearly Pokémon Presents.

It’s not hard to see why – with Pokémon Go, Masters EX, Café Remix, Unite, Sleep and TCG Pocket to cover, Pokémon’s active mobile library now spans six different games.

And with celebratory updates to each almost guaranteed to be announced today, there’s no better time to take a look at just how big a splash these titles have made in the mobile market, their overall financial performances, and which, if any, are still in their glory days.

All financial figures presented are based on AppMagic estimates, compiling gross player spending on the App Store and Google Play but not including alternative app stores or web shop sales.

Top of the class

Starting with The Pokémon Company’s oldest active mobile title, 2016’s Pokémon Go has made an estimated $8.4 billion across the better part of nine years. It should come as little surprise that this location-based AR behemoth has been the most successful mobile title in the franchise by far.

However, Pokémon Go’s earnings have declined in recent years since its mid-pandemic resurgence came to an end in the latter half of 2021. Since the last Pokémon Day on February 27th, 2024, Go has generated $723.2 million. It’s still one of the world’s most lucrative games, but is not the earner it once was.

It’s possible that Pokémon Day 2025 will be Go’s last under developer Niantic, now rumoured to be considering selling its mobile games portfolio to Savvy Games Group-owned Monopoly Go maker Scopely.

Pokémon’s second most lucrative mobile game is TCG Pocket from The Pokémon Company, DeNA and Creatures Inc.m released much more recently on October 30th, 2024.

A card collector and battler, the title has leveraged decades of physical TCG art alongside brand-new animated cards, making the most of the digital environment and grabbing a hefty fanbase in the process.

After thunderbolting to an estimated $500m in a matter of months, TCG Pocket was one of 2024’s most successful new games and has demonstrated its potential staying power with record comeback after record comeback each time a new card set has launched.

Rounding out the top three, DeNA’s Pokémon Masters EX has made $360.4m to date. This time last year it was the series’ second most lucrative mobile game, but having made ‘just’ $43.3m since last Pokémon Day, it’s now slipping further behind TCG Pocket.

Masters EX celebrated its fifth anniversary in 2024 with new, incredibly rare Arc Suit Sync Pairs added to the gacha for a limited time. While these helped spike revenue somewhat during their availability, the past year has still been Masters Ex’s worst performance since launch.

On the move

While in fourth place overall with $150m spent by players, 2023’s sleeper hit Pokémon Sleep is quietly gaining ground against Pokémon Masters EX. The sleep-tracking app has earned $74.1m this past year, over 50% more than the older gacha game, and has found a method thus far reliable in boosting revenue regularly with updates.

That method would be its limited-time Legendary Research events, with popular Pokémon Raikou, Entei and Suicune each increasing revenue when introduced. Despite some slowdown since the first anniversary and no new Legendary Pokémon since September 2024, Pokémon Sleep hasn’t dozed off yet.

Next up, Tencent’s cross-platform MOBA Pokémon Unite ranks fifth for series revenue on mobile with $99.9m generated since September 2021. The title has seen close competition between the US and Japan for its top mobile spender, the former at $27.9m and the latter at $26.6m over Unite’s lifetime. Its global earnings have fallen by just 1% this past year to $25m.

Lastly, Pokémon Café Remix has earned $16m to date, since its release almost five years ago in June 2020. The casual puzzle game made $3m of those earnings in the past year.

Another day, another Pokémon

Pokémon’s mobile games catalogue is incredibly varied in its success, demonstrating that the brand alone isn’t always enough to make any title a mega-hit.

However, the right strategy, a fresh idea, or making the most out of players’ nostalgia for these pocketable creatures appears to be a real potential golden ticket to success, with TCG Pocket soundly demonstrating Go wasn’t an unrepeatable phenomenon (so far).

It’s plain to see that TCG Pocket is the current star of the show, and could well be surging to its next milestone shortly after today’s Pokémon Presents – especially if another new pack gets unveiled.

For now only time will tell, but we shouldn’t have to wait long.