Pokémon has had two phone hits, on opposite terms. Pokémon GO belongs to another company and pays The Pokémon Company a licence fee; ten years on it still takes about $730m a year through the app stores. TCG Pocket is TPC’s own, and it lost 55% of its monthly players in five quarters. The trade-off is in the share. We estimate TPC received 13–23 yen of every hundred spent in GO in the one year that can be measured, and keeps 43–49 of every hundred spent in Pocket. So Pocket put ¥105–150bn on TPC’s revenue in the year to February 2026, before DeNA’s share, and is on course for ¥46–66bn in the year after.
Pokémon GO is an annuity
GO launched in July 2016 and took $786m through the app stores in its first six months. Spending peaked at $1.3bn in 2020 and has since settled at a little over half of that. Over ten years to July 2026 the stores collected almost $9.1bn, against $1.6bn for Pocket in its first eighteen months on the same vendor’s count. The operator said in March 2025 that more than 20m people still played each week.
The app-store figure understates the game. Scopely, which bought GO from Niantic in May 2025, says the game made more than $1bn of revenue in 2025. If that is player spending, at least 27–28% of it was spent outside the app stores, where GO runs its own web shop. Fig. 1 shows the store spending alone, with the range a vendor projects for 2026.
Ten years on, Pokémon GO still takes about $730 million a year through the app stores
Pokémon GO’s spending through the Apple and Google app stores, US$ million by calendar year, vendor estimate. Its own web shop is not included.
- App-store spending, estimate
- 2026 projection
- Estimate
Show the numbers
| Year | App-store spending, estimate, US$m | 2026 projection, US$m | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2016 | – | ||
| 2017 | – | ||
| 2018 | (854–902) | – | |
| 2019 | (919–971) | – | |
| 2020 | – | ||
| 2021 | – | ||
| 2022 | – | ||
| 2023 | – | ||
| 2024 | – | ||
| 2025 | (722–733) | – | |
| 2026 | – | (550–750) |
App-store spending, estimate. AppMagic estimates of spending through Apple and Google, calendar years. 2018, 2019 and 2025 are midpoints of implied ranges. GO’s own web shop is not included: at least about a quarter of 2025 player spending went there, so the fall overstates the drop in total spending.
2026 projection. A vendor projection for the full year, drawn as a range.
Pocket was a launch
Pocket went live on 30 October 2024. The number that tracks it quarter by quarter is the game revenue of its co-developer, DeNA, which went from ¥11.3bn in the quarter before launch to ¥28.0bn in the quarter of launch. By April–June 2026 it was ¥12.1bn, close to where it began. DeNA put the fall down to the high level of the year before.
Players followed the same path more slowly. DeNA counted 51m monthly players in January–March 2025 and 23m in April–June 2026. Spending fell further. On our estimate players spent ¥75.8bn in the first of those quarters and ¥16.5bn in the last, a drop of nearly four-fifths. A vendor’s separate count of app-store receipts shows a fall of about two-thirds between the first six months and the latest six. In the newest quarter players slipped only from 24m to 23m, but each spent about ¥239 a month, down from ¥394.
DeNA is due to report its July–September quarter around 10 November 2026. Our range for its game revenue is ¥10.6–12.8bn, against ¥15.4bn a year earlier. Fig. 2 runs the filed series from 2023.
DeNA’s game revenue more than doubled when Pocket launched and is back where it was
DeNA game-segment revenue by quarter, ¥ billion, April 2023 to June 2026. Includes DeNA’s other games.
A Pocket yen is worth more to The Pokémon Company than a GO yen
The two games are different contracts. GO is built and run by an outside operator, and TPC is paid a licence fee and a consideration for helping develop and run it, as the holder of the rights. In the year to February 2017, the one year where the income can be isolated, that came to 13–23 yen of every hundred spent through the stores. At the same rate GO was worth ¥13–26bn to TPC in the year to February 2026, on store spending of ¥100–111bn.
Pocket is TPC’s own product. TPC is the seller named in the app stores, the players’ spending is its sale, and it pays its developers out of that. DeNA’s filings put its share at about 24% of what players spend. After an assumed 27–33% for the stores, 43–49% is left for TPC, or ¥61–76bn in the year to February 2026, before Creatures’ share and TPC’s own costs. Fig. 3 sets the two rates on one scale.
The Pokémon Company keeps 13–23 yen of every hundred spent in GO and 43–49 in Pocket
Yen reaching The Pokémon Company per ¥100 of player spending, estimated ranges. GO: income as a share of app-store spending, year to February 2017. Pocket: after app stores and DeNA, October 2024 to March 2025.
- Pokémon GO: licence income, estimated range
- TCG Pocket: left after app stores and DeNA, estimated range
Show the numbers
| Game | Pokémon GO: licence income, estimated range, yen per ¥100 | TCG Pocket: left after app stores and DeNA, estimated range, yen per ¥100 | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| Pokémon GO (licensed, run by Scopely) | – | ||
| TCG Pocket (sold by The Pokémon Company) | – | (43–49) |
Pokémon GO: licence income, estimated range. The Tokyo company’s pre-tax income from GO in the year to February 2017 divided by that year’s app-store spending, on two vendors’ readings of the spending. The rate since then, and under Scopely, is not known; spending in GO’s own web shop is outside the base.
TCG Pocket: left after app stores and DeNA, estimated range. One hundred less an assumed 27–33 for the app stores and 23.6–24.4 for DeNA, from DeNA’s filings for October 2024 to March 2025. Creatures’ development share and The Pokémon Company’s own costs are not deducted.
Nothing else on the shelf comes close
Two other phone games that TPC sells itself can be sized. On our estimate Pokémon Sleep brought it ¥6–10bn in the year to February 2026 and Pokémon UNITE ¥1–2bn. UNITE stopped selling items on 27 October 2026 and closes on 23 March 2027.
The newcomer is Pokémon Champions, a free-to-play battle game that reached Switch on 8 April 2026 and phones on 17 June, with Nintendo selling the Switch version and TPC the phone version. It passed 20m downloads across both by early August. One vendor puts its first month on phones at about $7.2m, and another put Pocket’s first month at $200m. Fig. 4 shows what each game brought TPC in Pocket’s first full year.
Pocket brought The Pokémon Company more than GO, Sleep and UNITE put together
Estimated ranges, ¥ billion, year to February 2026. Games sold by The Pokémon Company: player spending after to before app-store fees. Pokémon GO: licence income.
- Games The Pokémon Company sells itself, estimated range
- Pokémon GO: licence income, estimated range
Pokémon Champions reached phones in June 2026, after this year closed.
Built from .Show the numbers
| Game | Games The Pokémon Company sells itself, estimated range, ¥bn | Pokémon GO: licence income, estimated range, ¥bn | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| TCG Pocket | – | ||
| Pokémon GO (licence income) | – | (13–26) | |
| Pokémon Sleep | (6.2–10) | – | |
| Pokémon UNITE | (1.1–1.6) | – |
Games The Pokémon Company sells itself, estimated range. Player spending reaching The Pokémon Company: low end after app-store fees, high end before. Pokémon Champions reached phones in June 2026, after this year ended, and has no figure yet.
Pokémon GO: licence income, estimated range. A profit-equivalent: app-store spending at the rate implied by the year to February 2017. It is income after the operator’s costs, so it is not on the same basis as the three bars of sales.
Pocket leaves a gap in this year’s revenue
Because Pocket’s spending is TPC’s own sale, the fade shows in the Tokyo company’s revenue. If spending decays by 5% a quarter from its April–June 2026 level, Pocket brings TPC ¥46–66bn in the year to February 2027, counted after app-store fees at the low end and before them at the high end. On the same two bases the year before was ¥105–150bn, so the fall is ¥59–84bn, or 11–16% of the Tokyo company’s ¥531.4bn revenue.
To report level revenue, everything TPC sells other than Pocket would have to grow by 19–25% if TPC books Pocket before store fees and by 12–16% if it books it after them, depending on how fast Pocket decays. The rest grew 32% last year, so the bar is below last year’s pace, and whether it is cleared rests mostly on trading cards. Fig. 5 sets the three periods side by side.
Pocket brought The Pokémon Company ¥105–150bn last year and is on course for ¥46–66bn this year
Pocket player spending reaching The Pokémon Company, ¥ billion, estimated: launch period and each year to February. Low end after app-store fees, high end before.
Show the numbers
| Year | Pocket spending reaching TPC, after to before app-store fees, ¥bn | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Oct 2024–Feb 2025 (launch, four months) | ||
| Year to Feb 2026 | ||
| Year to Feb 2027 (estimate) |
Pocket spending reaching TPC, after to before app-store fees. Low end assumes 30% app-store fees, high end is before fees; TPC’s own basis is not published. Built from DeNA’s filed revenue from TPC divided by DeNA’s implied share (0.236). The year to February 2027 assumes spending decays about 5% a quarter from April–June 2026.
What it adds up to
The Tokyo company’s revenue for the year to February 2027, against ¥531.4bn the year before, is due in the official gazette in June 2027.