What this is
The total number of Pokémon cards shipped worldwide since launch, as stated by The Pokémon Company: more than 23.6 billion by the end of March 2017.
How it’s built
- Read from the data page on the company's Japanese corporate site, in an archived copy from November 2017. It reads 'cumulative cards shipped: over 23.6 billion worldwide'.
What we assumed
- 'Over 23.6 billion' is treated as 23.6 billion.The page states a floor to the nearest 100 million, so the true figure is between 23.6 and 23.7 billion.
Sanity check
Only 2.1bn more than two years earlier (March 2015), about 1bn a year: a quiet period before later growth.
Where it comes from
Japanese-language article, 2017 The Pokémon Company, corporate site · 28 November 2017 Open the original ↗
The line in the source
累計出荷枚数：全世界で236億枚以上 Where it’s used
Related figures
The same measure, other periods