Trading cards are The Pokémon Company’s biggest business, about ≈¥290bn a year on our estimate. For most of the past six years the story was volume: the print nearly tripled between 2020 and 2022 and set a record in the year to March 2024. It has run 10–16% below that record since, and yet Western shops sold 1.45–1.87 times as much in 2025 as the year before. The growth now comes from what a card sells for and how much of that price reaches TPC. A standard Japanese card has gone from ¥33 to ¥40 since 2022, and TPC’s Western arm keeps about 46–49¢ of each list dollar, more when it sells by a shorter route.
Western sales rose far faster than the print
Circana, which tracks shop tills, counted $2.5bn of Pokémon toys sold in the United States in 2025, cards included, up 87% on 2024. The same tracker has France up 59% and the UK up 45%. Applied to cards, which is our assumption, that range gives Western shelf sales of 1.45–1.87 times the year before.
The print did not keep pace. Worldwide, the print in the year to March 2026 was between 0.80 and 1.09 times the year before. If the West took the same share of the cards in both years, the sales value of each Western card rose by at least 33%, through dearer products, a richer mix or stock drawn down from the channel. Fig. 1 puts the two ranges on one scale.
Western card sales rose 45% or more in a year when the print rose 9% at most
Each bar is a range, as a multiple of the year before. Western shop sales of Pokémon cards, calendar 2025 on 2024, from Circana’s growth in all Pokémon toys. Cards printed worldwide, year to March 2026 on the year before, from TPC’s lifetime total.
- Sales at the shelf, estimated range
- Cards printed, range allowed by TPC’s rounded totals
Show the numbers
| Measure | Sales at the shelf, estimated range, × the year before | Cards printed, range allowed by TPC’s rounded totals, × the year before | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| Western shop sales, 2025 | (1.45–1.87) | – | |
| Cards printed, to March 2026 | – | (0.80–1.09) |
Sales at the shelf, estimated range. Circana’s register data for all Pokémon toys, cards included: up 45% in the UK and 87% in the United States in 2025. We apply that range to Western card sales, which is an assumption; no tracker publishes cards alone.
Cards printed, range allowed by TPC’s rounded totals. TPC’s lifetime total read 75bn “or more” in March 2025 and 85bn “or more” in March 2026. Read as floors to the whole billion, the latest year’s print was between 0.80 and 1.09 times the year before. The shelf year is a calendar year and the print year runs to March.
The print nearly tripled by 2022 and has not grown since 2024
TPC publishes one card number, a lifetime total, which stood at 85bn “or more” in March 2026. Subtracting one March from the next gives the year’s print. TPC shipped 3.2bn in the year to March 2020 and produced 9.1bn two years later, then a record 11.9bn in the year to March 2024. More than half of all Pokémon cards ever made, 59–61%, date from the five years since March 2021.
Since the record, TPC has dropped the decimal from the total, so each year can only be read as a range, 10.1–11.2bn in the year to March 2025 and 9.0–11.0bn in the year to March 2026. Volume built the business up to 2024 and has added nothing to it since. How the total is read, and how far it can be trusted, is on Printing.
Card printing peaked at 11.9 billion in 2024 and has run at 9 to 11 billion since
Pokémon cards a year, billions, years to March, by subtracting TPC’s lifetime total from the next year’s. Shipped until 2020, produced from 2021. The 2025 and 2026 bars are ranges.
- Cards a year, from TPC’s running total
- Since 2025: range, because TPC now rounds the counter down to a floor
Show the numbers
| Year to March | Cards a year, from TPC’s running total, bn cards | Since 2025: range, because TPC now rounds the counter down to a floor, bn cards | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2018 | – | ||
| 2019 | – | ||
| 2020 | – | ||
| 2021 | – | ||
| 2022 | – | ||
| 2023 | – | ||
| 2024 | – | ||
| 2025 | – | (10.1–11.2) | |
| 2026 | – | (9.0–11.0) |
Cards a year, from TPC’s running total. Each bar is one March reading of TPC’s lifetime counter minus the one before; TPC states no annual figure. To 2020 the counter counted cards shipped, from 2021 cards produced, so the 2021 bar mixes the two.
Since 2025: range, because TPC now rounds the counter down to a floor. From March 2025 TPC shows the counter as “at least 75bn”, then “at least 85bn”. Read as floors to the nearest billion, each year lies in the range shown. Together the two years averaged 10–16% below the 2024 record however they split.
The list price per card is up a fifth since 2022, and each rise was put down to costs
TPC prices a pack by its type. A standard Japanese pack of five cards listed at ¥165 until January 2023, then at ¥180, and at ¥200 from May 2026, a cumulative rise of 21%. The first notice cited raw-material and logistics costs and the second raw-material costs. Neither notice mentioned scarcity, and of 12 shortage notices on TPC’s Japanese site since 2023 none raised a price. What scarce sets fetch above list is the subject of Collector market.
The premium tier sits on the same ladder. The yearly high-class pack has listed at ¥550 for ten cards on 5 packs running since 2020, so its premium over the standard card has narrowed from 1.67 to 1.53 times. The 30th anniversary pack of September 2026 came out at ¥60 a card, 1.5 times the new standard rate.
A standard Japanese pack has gone from ¥33 to ¥40 a card since 2022, each rise explained by costs
Japanese list price per card, tax included, by type of pack and year of release.
- Standard expansion pack
- High-class pack
- 30th anniversary pack
Show the numbers
| Released | Standard expansion pack, ¥ a card | High-class pack, ¥ a card | 30th anniversary pack, ¥ a card | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2016 | – | – | ||
| 2017 | no figure | – | – | |
| 2018 | no figure | – | – | |
| 2019 | no figure | – | – | |
| 2020 | no figure | – | ||
| 2021 | no figure | no figure | – | |
| 2022 | – | |||
| 2023 | – | |||
| 2024 | – | |||
| 2025 | – | |||
| 2026 | – |
Standard expansion pack. ¥33 a card from December 2016, ¥36 from 20 January 2023, ¥40 from 22 May 2026. The 2023 rise was put down to raw-material and logistics costs, the 2026 rise to raw-material costs. Each year shows the last sampled pack of that year, so 2026 shows ¥40 although January’s pack was still ¥36.
High-class pack. ¥550 for 10 cards on every pack from November 2020 to November 2025, so its premium over the standard pack shrank as the standard rose.
30th anniversary pack. ¥360 for 6 cards, released 16 September 2026.
Eleven products a year and longer chase lists keep a flat print selling
The calendar is what turns a fixed price into repeat purchases. Japan had an average of 5.7 booster products a year in the six years to February 2016 and 10.7 a year from 2018. That step came four years before the print jumped, so the calendar was already in place when volume arrived. Each year’s cards carry a mark that stays legal in Japanese tournament play for about 3 years, with 3 marks legal at once, so a player’s deck has to be renewed on a schedule.
More of each set is now built to be chased. In the two English sets we measured, cards numbered beyond the printed set total make up 28% and 31% of the card list, against about 2% of English lists before 2018. They are about 2% of the cards people open, roughly 7 in a box of 36 packs, on collectors’ own opening counts. The list price is the same whether or not a pack holds one.
Japan’s card releases nearly doubled after 2017, from about 6 a year to about 11
Booster products released in Japan, by TPC’s year to February, from the official product list.
Show the numbers
| Year to February | Booster products released in Japan, products | Source |
|---|---|---|
| 2011 | ||
| 2012 | ||
| 2013 | ||
| 2014 | ||
| 2015 | ||
| 2016 | ||
| 2017 | ||
| 2018 | ||
| 2019 | ||
| 2020 | ||
| 2021 | ||
| 2022 | ||
| 2023 | ||
| 2024 | ||
| 2025 | ||
| 2026 |
Booster products released in Japan. From the official product list. Averages: 5.67 a year for 2011–2016 and 10.67 for 2018–2026; 2017 is the transition year. The 2026 count of 11 includes two deluxe re-packs released the same day, so distinct sets are 9.
TPC’s Western arm keeps just under half of list, and all of it in its own shop
Outside Japan the lever is the route. A hobby shop buys through a distributor, and TPC’s Western arm is left with 38–50¢ of each list dollar. Through the kind of distributor that serves the big American chains it keeps 38–59¢, from a retailer that buys direct 50–65¢, and in Europe, through Asmodee, 35–50¢. In its own Pokémon Center shops it keeps all of it. Blended, the share is 35–59¢ and most likely 46–49¢. Wizards of the Coast, selling Magic direct to shops in 2018, kept 53% of list, above TPC’s most likely blend and inside its full range.
On these estimates, a sale moved from a hobby distributor to a direct account or to TPC’s own shop raises revenue with no extra card printed. That is the logic of the agreement to buy the distributor Excell, covered on TPC International.
TPC’s Western arm keeps just under half of a card’s list price, and all of it in its own shop
Estimated cents kept per dollar of list price, by route to the shelf. A shop can use more than one route. Every bar is our estimate.
- Estimated range
- Own stores: the publisher keeps all of it
- Most likely, all Western sales
Show the numbers
| Route to the shelf | Estimated range, ¢ of each $ | Own stores: the publisher keeps all of it, ¢ of each $ | Most likely, all Western sales, ¢ of each $ | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Pokémon Center, own stores | – | – | ||
| GameStop, buys direct | (50–65) | – | – | |
| Via a distributor such as Excell | (38–59) | – | – | |
| Hobby stores, via distributors | (38–50) | – | – | |
| Europe, via Asmodee | (35–50) | – | – | |
| All Western card sales | (35–59) | – | – | |
| All Western, most likely | – | – | (46–49) |
Estimated range. No route’s share is published, so every bar is a bounded estimate. Hobby: store cost of 50–56% of list less an assumed distributor margin (ceiling 56¢). Excell: wide because its margin is assumed, and whether Excell takes title to Target’s or Walmart’s cards, rather than managing the category for a fee, is not confirmed. GameStop says in its annual report that it buys directly from manufacturers; a store can also use more than one route, so the bars are routes, not stores. Europe: derived from Asmodee UK’s filed margin. The all-Western blend uses illustrative weights.
Own stores: the publisher keeps all of it. Pokémon Center is 100¢ by construction; how much it sells is not published.
Most likely, all Western sales. The central part of the blended range. Excell was signed in February 2026 with no closing on record, so it has not changed the latest year’s share.
What it adds up to
Japan has had a premium “high-class” pack every October to December for 8 years, so far at ¥550 for ten cards. This winter’s is the first since the standard pack went up.