What this is
Pokémon's share of Japan's card-game sales around 2023: roughly 48% of the market by one data firm's brand ranking.
How it’s built
- Media Create, a Japanese market-research firm, put Pokémon card sales at ¥133.7bn and the top 15 brands at ¥276.1bn. Pokémon is 48.4% of that.
- Against the Japan Toy Association's whole card category (¥277.4bn in the year to March 2024) it is 48.2%.
What we assumed
- Media Create's figures cover April 2023 to March 2024.Outlets label the same numbers differently, as calendar 2023 or that fiscal year. Weighting for calendar 2023 gives about 50%, so it matters little.
- Media Create's figures are at retail or list price, like the association's.If they were wholesale, the top 15 at list price would be 142–181% of the whole category, which is impossible.
Sanity check
Media Create's top 15 alone equals 99.5% of the association's category, so its market is slightly broader. A widely quoted 'about 40%' share fits 2022 (about 41.5%), not 2023.
Where it comes from
Our calculation from other figures in the trainer’s notes.
Show the working
- Pokemon share of MC top-15 %: 48.4
- Pokemon share of JTA 年度2023 (if MC period = Apr2023-Mar2024) %: 48.2
- Mis-mapped to JTA 年度2022 (not valid) %: 56.9
- Top-15 / JTA 年度2023 %: 99.5
- Ceiling: Pokemon if non-Pokemon top-15 only, on JTA 年度2023 %: 48.7
- 133.7/276.1 = 48.4%
- 133.7/277.425 = 48.2%
- 133.7/266.8 = 50.1%
- 133.7/234.906 = 56.9% (wrong period)
- 276.1/277.425 = 99.5%
- (277.425 - 142.4)/277.425 = 48.7%
- 276.1/0.70 = 394.4 and /0.55 = 502.0 vs 277.4
- 133.7/1.37 =..