A rough range for how much Pokémon cards and products change hands on resale markets each year, around 2025–26

What this is

A rough range for how much Pokémon cards and products change hands on resale markets each year, around 2025–26: about $1.3–4.1bn worldwide.

How it’s built

1. West: eBay card sales tracked by Card Ladder, a card-price service, annualised at $3.5–5.4bn, times an assumed 30–60% Pokémon share: $1.0–3.2bn.
2. Japan: Pokémon cards sold new at list price, ¥135.4bn, times an assumed resale-to-new ratio of 0.3 to 1.0: ¥41–135bn, or $0.27–0.91bn.
3. Added the two.

What we assumed

• Pokémon is 30–60% of eBay card sales.The research gives no direct evidence for this share; it is a main uncertainty.
• Japanese resale is 0.3 to 1.0 times new sales.The research gives no direct evidence for this ratio either.
• Pokémon is about 40% of Japan’s card market.An undated attribution to Media Create, a Japanese market research firm.
• ¥149.57 to the dollar.The research uses one rate for the year.

Sanity check

No filing discloses Pokémon resale volume. The range leaves out TCGplayer sales off eBay, auction houses like Goldin, and Asia outside Japan. The Japan range is 3–11% of Mercari’s total marketplace sales, a plausible scale.

Where it comes from

Our calculation from other figures in the trainer’s notes:

• EstimateHow big Pokémon resale is against new-card sales
• EstimateJapan trading card market identity and Pokémon primary, 年度2024-2025

Where it’s used

• StoryMarket
• ProfileGameStop
• ProfileeBay
• ProfileCollector and resale market

Related figures

Built from this one

• EstimateWhat a reseller kept, per dollar of list price, after eBay's fee on a booster box bought at list
• EstimatePokémon card resale worldwide, a year, in yen, our model¥194–613bn