Pokémon Center is the one place where Pokémon sells to fans itself, at full price, and decides who gets the scarce things. It is also hard to see into. The name covers four separate legal sellers and none of them publishes its sales; two outside firms put the Western web shop’s 2025 sales at $195m and $513m. The company that runs the Japanese stores earned ¥370m on ¥4.0bn of assets in the year to February 2026, which looks like what an operator is paid, and it is close to an even bet whether it or its parent is the seller on a store receipt.
One shop name covers four sellers
Japan’s web shop names the Tokyo parent, The Pokémon Company (TPC), as the business on its legal seller notice. The Singapore store’s terms name Pokemon Singapore Pte. Ltd. as its operator. In the United States, the United Kingdom and Canada, pokemoncenter.com is sold by The Pokémon Company International (TPCi), the Western arm. In Germany, Australia and New Zealand the legal seller is Global-e, a cross-border e-commerce firm. The customer’s contract is with Global-e, and the shop’s own notice says Pokémon “acts only as an intermediary”. In those three markets the group’s revenue is its sale to Global-e, below the price the fan pays.
Where the group is the seller, it books the whole shelf price. On a pack of cards sold through distributors and shops it books ¥35–59 of every hundred yen of list price (the routes are compared on Trading cards). How much the shops sell is known only in outline. Our revenue model carries the stores and web shop in Japan and Asia at fifty to a hundred and fifty billion yen a year, an assumption with no outside measure behind it. The Western web shop is the only one that outsiders try to measure, and Fig. 1 sets its two estimates beside that assumption.
Only the Western web shop has outside sales estimates, and they disagree
Yearly sales, ¥ billion. Japan and Asia is the range our model assumes for the year to February 2026; the Western web shop is the span between two outside firms’ estimates for 2025.
- Japan and Asia, our model, year to February 2026
- pokemoncenter.com, two outside firms’ estimates for 2025
Show the numbers
| Shops | Japan and Asia, our model, year to February 2026, ¥bn a year | pokemoncenter.com, two outside firms’ estimates for 2025, ¥bn a year | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| Japan and Asia: stores and web shop | – | ||
| Western web shop | – |
Japan and Asia, our model, year to February 2026. No company publishes store sales. The Tokyo parent is the seller named on the Japanese web shop’s notice; Pokemon Singapore Pte. Ltd. operates the Singapore store. This range is an assumption carried in our revenue model, with no outside measure behind it.
pokemoncenter.com, two outside firms’ estimates for 2025. Estimates by ECDB (the higher) and Grips (the lower), converted at the 2025 average rate. Pokémon’s Western arm is the seller in the United States, the United Kingdom and Canada; Global-e is the legal seller in Germany, Australia and New Zealand.
The store company’s accounts fit an operator
The Japanese stores are run by Pokémon Center K.K., which names TPC as its main shareholder and describes its business as operating the shops, the web shop and the cafés. Its accounts are small. Share capital is ¥8m, it has paid no dividend in the last two years, and profit per employee is 1.14× what it was three years earlier, while the parent’s revenue is 2.3×.
A retailer that owned its goods would need money tied up in stock and in card payments not yet received. On our estimate, selling ¥100bn a year would take ¥6.6–13.2bn of working capital, more than the store company’s entire balance sheet. At ¥50bn the need overlaps what it holds, so the accounts alone cannot exclude it as the seller, and it could also be the seller on commission without owning the stock. With ordinary retail margins and stock turns, its profit and assets would support only ¥8–37bn of sales as an owner of the goods. We put the chance that the parent is the seller in the physical stores at a little better than even. Fig. 2 shows the test.
The store company’s ¥4bn of assets is less than a seller of ¥100bn a year would need
Pokémon Center K.K.’s total assets in February 2026 against the working capital a goods-owning seller would need at three levels of yearly store sales. ¥ billion; the ranges are estimates.
- Pokémon Center K.K., total assets, February 2026
- Stock and card receipts a seller that owned its goods would carry
The store company’s assets peaked at ¥5.8bn in February 2024.
Built from , and .Show the numbers
| Measure | Pokémon Center K.K., total assets, February 2026, ¥bn | Stock and card receipts a seller that owned its goods would carry, ¥bn | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| Store company’s total assets | – | ||
| Needed to sell ¥50bn a year | – | (3.3–6.6) | |
| Needed to sell ¥100bn a year | – | (6.6–13.2) | |
| Needed to sell ¥150bn a year | – | (9.9–19.7) |
Pokémon Center K.K., total assets, February 2026. From the company’s notice in Japan’s official gazette. Assets were ¥5.8bn at their peak in February 2024.
Stock and card receipts a seller that owned its goods would carry. Our estimate: 30 to 60 days of stock at cost plus 10 to 20 days of card receipts. A seller on commission would carry the card receipts only, ¥1.0–5.8bn.
The answer moves revenue between two group companies and leaves the group’s profit where it is. If the store company were the seller, ¥7.5–37.5bn of store margin would sit outside the parent’s accounts.
Two outside estimates of the Western web shop differ 2.6 times
The higher estimate is 2.6× the lower. Definitions explain little of that. The lower firm counts purchases and leaves out returns, and allowing generously for tax, shipping and returns closes the gap by a factor of 1.3 at most. The disagreement is about growth. The higher firm calls 2025 “a change of 250-255% from the previous year”; the lower has sales “up 50%+ from the previous year”. Worked back to 2024, the two could have been as little as 1.1× apart. By September 2026 their monthly figures were 1.8× apart. Fig. 3 draws both firms’ two years.
Two data firms’ estimates of Pokémon Center’s 2025 online sales differ 2.6 times
Estimated sales of pokemoncenter.com, US$ million, calendar 2024 and 2025. Sources: ECDB (higher) and Grips (lower); the 2024 points are worked back from each firm’s stated growth, and the lower firm’s is the most it can be.
- Higher estimate (ECDB)
- Lower estimate (Grips)
- Estimate
Show the numbers
| Year | Higher estimate (ECDB), $m | Lower estimate (Grips), $m | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2024 | (145–147) | ||
| 2025 |
Higher estimate (ECDB). 2024 is worked back from the firm’s statement that 2025 was up 250–255%.
Lower estimate (Grips). 2024 is the most it can be, given the firm’s statement that 2025 was up by more than 50%. The lower firm counts purchases and leaves out returns.
The shop decides who gets scarce stock
A third-party retailer can cap what each customer buys. GameStop limited new card products to one per customer from May 2025. In its own shop TPC goes further, because it can choose the buyer. In May 2021 it stopped counter sales of four card products at Pokémon Centers and sold them by online lottery instead. That October it sold an anniversary box by lottery only, then made it to order after the lottery drew many applications. On 3 August 2026 it began checking identity against Japan’s national ID card, and gave verified accounts priority in lotteries on the web shop. In the lottery for the thirtieth-anniversary card set, most winning slots were reserved for verified applicants, with one entry per person and earlier buyers of the same product excluded. No count of lotteries or of winners is published, so this step has no chart.
London in 2029 is the first of several
On 21 October 2026 TPC announced a permanent store in London, to open by 2029, as the first of several permanent stores it plans outside Asia. The group has run a Western store before, Pokémon Center New York, from 2001 to 2005. Which group company will be the seller in London has not been said.
What it adds up to
The store company’s accounts for the year to February 2027 are the next sight of it; its assets were ¥4bn at the last count.