The Pokémon Company earns a good margin, and a lower one than the companies it is usually compared with. It keeps about 30% of its sales as operating profit, on group revenue of ¥1.02–1.05tn. Sanrio, which licenses Hello Kitty, keeps 40.1%, and Wizards of the Coast, which publishes Magic, keeps 46.0%. The difference is that The Pokémon Company makes and sells most of what it earns from, and in the Tokyo company cost of sales takes 57% of revenue. What it does earn it keeps. The Tokyo company holds ¥414bn of retained earnings and has paid its owners 2.9% of the past ten years’ profit.
Most of the revenue comes from goods it sells itself
The company was set up in 1998 “to manage and control all rights to” Pokémon for the three firms that own it (its years as a small rights manager are on The thin years). Today it publishes the trading cards and sells TCG Pocket in its own name. On our estimate the cards bring in ¥223–370bn, and cards and Pocket together are 31–51% of the group. Adding its shops, the lines it sells itself are between two-fifths and four-fifths of revenue. Licence income of every kind is an eighth to under a quarter.
For a licensor the proportions run the other way. Royalties are 49.7% of Sanrio’s sales, and licensing is 52.2% of Toei Animation’s. Fig. 1 sets out our estimate of each line, coloured by whether the company sells the product or licenses it.
The three largest lines are ones The Pokémon Company sells itself
Estimated revenue of the whole group by line, year to February 2026, ¥ billion. Bars are our central estimates, and the ranges around them, which are wide for the shops, are in the table; payments from Nintendo are shown as a range because they have no central estimate. The company publishes no split.
- Lines the company sells itself
- Licence income
- Payments from Nintendo for console games (range only)
Show the numbers
| Line | Lines the company sells itself, ¥bn a year | Licence income, ¥bn a year | Payments from Nintendo for console games (range only), ¥bn a year | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Trading cards | (223–370) | – | – | |
| Mobile games | (123–205) | – | – | |
| Pokémon Center shops and events | (73–245) | – | – | |
| Licensing outside Asia | – | (99–131) | – | |
| Licensing in Japan and Asia | – | (15–50) | – | |
| Console games, paid by Nintendo | – | – | ||
| Anime | – | (1.2–14) | – |
Lines the company sells itself. No line is published; each bar is our central estimate, and the table view gives its range. Mobile is mostly TCG Pocket and the company’s other apps, booked as revenue; it also holds the licence income from Pokémon GO, about ¥13–26bn, estimated from profit. Shops and events is wide because neither publishes sales.
Licence income. Royalties from licensees, at an industry-average rate outside Asia. The anime row is the company’s own share of the programme’s income.
Payments from Nintendo for console games (range only). Only the payment for publishing the games in Japan is certain; any royalty on sales abroad could be zero, so the range has no central estimate.
Selling has not made it grow faster than Sanrio. The Tokyo company’s revenue rose from ¥120.0bn to ¥531.4bn in five years, or 4.4×. Part of that is Pocket, which the company sells in its own name. Sanrio’s rose 4.7× over the same five years, from a pandemic low. What the choice changed is where the profit comes from and how much of each yen is kept.
It keeps ten points less of each yen than Sanrio
On group revenue the operating margin is 29.5–31.3%, on our estimate from Nintendo’s filings. The Tokyo company, which publishes its own accounts, made 27.1% last year and has stayed between 23.2% and 29.8% in the six years it has printed an income statement. Toei Animation keeps 33.1%, Konami’s games division 35.3%, and Sanrio and Wizards more again.
Sanrio’s own accounts show why the mix matters. Its product sales earned 18.5% in the year to March 2025 and its licensing in Japan 84.2%, before head-office costs. Wizards is the harder comparison, because it too publishes cards. Its 2025 margin was a high; its management puts the usual range in the high 30s to low 40s. Wizards owns Magic outright, while The Pokémon Company manages rights that belong to its three founders, and its margin is struck after whatever it pays them (see The founders).
The Pokémon Company keeps about 30% of sales; Sanrio keeps 40% and Wizards 46%
Operating profit as a share of sales, latest full year for each company, percent.
- Listed peers, latest full year
- The Pokémon Company group (estimate)
- The Pokémon Company, Tokyo company (filed)
Show the numbers
| Company | Listed peers, latest full year, % of sales | The Pokémon Company group (estimate), % of sales | The Pokémon Company, Tokyo company (filed), % of sales | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Wizards of the Coast | – | – | ||
| Sanrio | – | – | ||
| Konami, games division | – | – | ||
| Toei Animation | – | – | ||
| The Pokémon Company, group | – | (29.5–31.3) | – | |
| The Pokémon Company, Tokyo company | – | – |
Listed peers, latest full year. Wizards of the Coast is Hasbro’s segment for calendar 2025, a year its management calls above its usual range of the high 30s to low 40s. Sanrio and Toei Animation are consolidated, year to March 2026. Konami is its Digital Entertainment segment after a share of head-office costs, year to March 2026.
The Pokémon Company group (estimate). Estimated from what Nintendo reports for its affiliates, with the baseball club it also holds taken out and one-off gains removed; year to February 2026.
The Pokémon Company, Tokyo company (filed). From the company’s own published accounts, year to February 2026. Over the six years it has published an income statement the figure has run between 23.2% and 29.8%.
Its costs are a manufacturer’s
The Tokyo company’s accounts show where the missing points go. Cost of sales was 56.7% of revenue last year, and selling and administrative costs a further 16.2%. In the three years before Pocket, cost of sales fitted a simple rule of about ¥20bn a year plus 42% of sales. Over the same years it came to ¥11.7–12.2 for every card produced worldwide. Three years is a thin base for a rule, but most of the cost plainly rises and falls with what is sold.
Pocket added a second layer. Cost of sales had fallen to 48.8% of revenue and jumped to 57.3% in the app’s first year. As the seller, the company bears the app stores’ fee, about ¥45bn last year on our estimate, and pays the developer, DeNA, which reported ¥35.5bn from The Pokémon Company in the year to March 2025.
Cost of sales takes 57 yen of every 100 the Tokyo company sells
Cost of sales, selling and administrative costs, and operating profit of the Tokyo company, each as a share of revenue, years to February 2021–2026, percent.
- Cost of sales
- Selling and administrative costs
- Operating profit
Show the numbers
| Year to February | Cost of sales, % of sales | Selling and administrative costs, % of sales | Operating profit, % of sales | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2021 | ||||
| 2022 | ||||
| 2023 | ||||
| 2024 | ||||
| 2025 | ||||
| 2026 |
Cost of sales. The Tokyo company alone, from its published accounts. Cost of sales is what it pays to make and deliver what it sells; the notices do not split it further.
Operating profit. What is left: the operating margin.
A cost base like this gives up margin in good years and should protect it in bad ones. When Sanrio’s sales fell 28.2% between 2014 and 2020, 87% of each lost yen came out of profit and its margin went from 27.3% to 3.8%. A publisher that sells fewer cards also prints fewer. The Pokémon Company’s accounts have not yet shown this, because revenue has risen in every year it has published; what a card slump would cost is modelled on Value and risk.
The profit stays in the company
The Tokyo company’s net assets grew from ¥11bn in February 2016 to ¥416bn ten years later. In that time it paid its owners twice, ¥3.0bn in the year to February 2018 and ¥9.0bn in the year to February 2024. They were 18.8% and 18.4% of the previous year’s profit, and no rule has been announced. Together they come to 2.9% of the ¥415.5bn earned over the decade.
The Tokyo company’s net assets grew from ¥11bn to ¥416bn in ten years, and it paid out ¥12bn
Net assets of the Tokyo company at the end of February, and its two payouts to owners, ¥ billion.
- Shareholders’ equity
- Valuation adjustments
- Paid out to owners
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| End of February | Shareholders’ equity, ¥bn | Valuation adjustments, ¥bn | Paid out to owners, ¥bn | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2016 | – | |||
| 2017 | – | |||
| 2018 | ||||
| 2019 | – | |||
| 2020 | – | |||
| 2021 | – | |||
| 2022 | – | |||
| 2023 | – | |||
| 2024 | ||||
| 2025 | – | |||
| 2026 | – |
Shareholders’ equity. The Japanese parent company alone, balance sheet at the end of February, read from the gazette notices. Net assets are the two parts stacked.
Paid out to owners. Payouts are the retained-earnings roll-forward residual, shown in the year it falls (the dividend is declared after year end): ¥12.0bn in all over ten years.
Listed peers work to a different standard. Konami, Sanrio, Bandai Namco and Toei Animation each declared at least 30% of profit as dividends in their latest year, and Nintendo declared 60%. Had the Tokyo company paid at the lowest of those rates since 2018, its owners would have received about ¥120bn, of which Nintendo’s 32% would have been ¥38bn. Nintendo’s actual receipts were ¥3.3–3.8bn.
Peers pay out 30–60% of profit; The Pokémon Company has paid out 3%
Dividends as a share of profit. Peers: year to March 2026. The Pokémon Company: its Tokyo company over the nine years to February 2026. Percent.
- Listed peers, year to March 2026
- The Pokémon Company, nine years to February 2026
Show the numbers
| Company | Listed peers, year to March 2026, % of profit | The Pokémon Company, nine years to February 2026, % of profit | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| Nintendo | – | ||
| Toei Animation | – | ||
| Bandai Namco | – | ||
| Sanrio | – | ||
| Konami | – | ||
| The Pokémon Company | – |
Listed peers, year to March 2026. Declared dividends as a share of consolidated profit; buybacks are left out so the bars are like for like. Hasbro is left out: its latest comparable year is not like for like.
The Pokémon Company, nine years to February 2026. Japanese parent company: two payouts (years to February 2018 and 2024) over nine years of its profit. On a group basis it is 1.64%.
The only large uses of the money on record are purchases along the card chain by the Western arm, a printer in 2022 and a distributor agreed in 2026 (see TPC International). Why the owners leave the rest where it is, and what that makes the company worth, is the subject of Value and risk.
What it adds up to
The Tokyo company’s next accounts, for the year to February 2027, are due in the official gazette around June 2027.