What this is
The total number of Pokémon cards shipped worldwide since launch, as stated by The Pokémon Company: more than 21.5 billion by the end of March 2015.
How it’s built
- Read from the data page on the company's Japanese corporate site, in an archived copy from September 2015. It reads 'cumulative cards shipped: over 21.5 billion worldwide'.
What we assumed
- 'Over 21.5 billion' is treated as 21.5 billion.The page states a floor to the nearest 100 million, so the true figure is between 21.5 and 21.6 billion.
Sanity check
The label is 'shipped', not 'produced'; later totals switch to 'produced', so long-run comparisons mix two measures.
Where it comes from
Japanese-language article, 2015 The Pokémon Company, corporate site · 5 September 2015 Open the original ↗
The line in the source
累計出荷枚数：全世界で215億枚以上 Where it’s used
Related figures
The same measure, other periods