About half of Pokémon’s business happens in companies that tell the public almost nothing. Subsidiaries of The Pokémon Company booked ¥488–516bn of revenue in the latest year, beside ¥531.4bn at the Tokyo company, and none of them publishes a sales figure. The largest is The Pokémon Company International, or TPCi, the American company that runs Pokémon outside Asia. What can be learned comes from the edges: a Dublin office paid 3.8% over its costs, a Korean subsidiary whose purchases and charges from Tokyo come to 12.8–21.0% of its revenue, and a US parent that has agreed to buy its card printer and its largest distributor.
About half the group sits in companies that publish no sales
Nintendo’s filings imply revenue for the whole group of about ¥1.04tn. Take away the Tokyo company’s own revenue and the subsidiaries are left with almost as much again. Profit divides the same way. On our estimate ¥129–140bn of the group’s net profit, about half, is earned below the parent.
TPCi runs every market outside Asia, so most of that is likely to be its own. It is the same Delaware corporation that was formed as Pokémon USA in February 2001. Its UK establishment has made 38 filings since 2005 and none is a set of accounts. The only sales figure in any court record is a floor from a counterfeiting case, US merchandise sales that “exceeded $6 million in 2014 alone”.
In Japan the subsidiary that runs the Pokémon Center shops prints a balance sheet each year without a sales line; it reported a net profit of ¥0.4bn last year. Two overseas subsidiaries file full accounts. Pokémon Korea sold at most ¥7.2bn outside the group in 2025, and TPCi Ireland’s whole revenue was ¥1.05–1.06bn. Fig. 1 sets those two beside the total they belong to.
About half of Pokémon’s revenue, ¥488–516bn, sits in subsidiaries that publish no sales figure
Revenue, ¥ billion. Tokyo company and all subsidiaries, year to February 2026; Pokémon Korea and TPCi Ireland, calendar 2025. The subsidiaries’ total is the group less the Tokyo company.
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| Company | Revenue, ¥bn | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Tokyo company | ||
| All subsidiaries | ||
| Pokémon Korea | ||
| TPCi Ireland | (1.1–1.1) |
Revenue. Tokyo company: its own accounts, year to February 2026. All subsidiaries: the group’s revenue implied by Nintendo’s filings, with the baseball club removed, less the Tokyo company; a floor, because sales between group companies would raise it. Pokémon Korea: audited revenue for 2025 net of its sales to the Tokyo company, converted to yen. TPCi Ireland: its 2025 revenue, a service fee paid by its US parent, which drops out of the group total.
The two that file are a service desk in Dublin and a licensee in Seoul
TPCi Ireland is wholly owned by the American company. Its accounts have a single revenue line, “provision of services”, worth €6.19m in 2025 and charged entirely to TPCi. The work is customer service and logistics coordination, done by 21 people. In each of four years the fee has run between two and five per cent above Dublin’s costs. The company holds no stock, has no trade debtors and books no royalty in either direction, and its accounts say that its parent contracts with customers in their sales territories and carries their credit risk. Europe’s sales are booked elsewhere, by the American parent on the accounts’ own wording, and Fig. 2 shows what Dublin receives for supporting them.
Pokémon’s Dublin office is paid its costs plus 2–5%, all of it by its US parent
TPCi Ireland’s revenue, a fee from TPCi, against its own running costs, € million, years to December. It had 21 staff in 2025.
- Fee charged to TPCi Inc. (its only revenue)
- Its own running costs
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| Year | Fee charged to TPCi Inc. (its only revenue), €m | Its own running costs, €m | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2022 | |||
| 2023 | |||
| 2024 | |||
| 2025 |
Fee charged to TPCi Inc. (its only revenue). Revenue as filed, one line, “Provision of services”, all of it charged to TPCi Inc. The 2022 figure is the comparative in the 2023 accounts.
Its own running costs. Administrative expenses, which are all of its operating costs: it books no cost of sales. The fee runs 2.2–4.6% above them.
Pokémon Korea belongs to the Tokyo company directly and works the other way round. It licenses, sells Korean-language cards and runs events in its own name, with revenue of ₩73.3bn in 2025, and it is the only subsidiary with sales of its own whose accounts are on file. Everything it booked from the Tokyo company came to between 12.8% and 21.0% of revenue in every year from 2017 to 2025, the only record of what the Tokyo company takes from a subsidiary. Until 2021 the accounts also showed a card royalty, about 12% of card sales at first and exactly 8.25% in 2020 and 2021. The cards themselves appear to be made locally. The card game’s current certificate on Korea’s product-safety register, and all 26 filings in which Pokémon Korea names itself as the maker, give Korea as the country of manufacture.
Tokyo takes its charge and leaves the rest. Pokémon Korea paid no dividend in nine years and had kept ₩83.8bn by the end of 2025, even as its operating margin fell from 41.3% in 2022 to 18.1% on heavier advertising. Fig. 3 gives Tokyo’s share year by year.
Pokémon Korea’s purchases and charges from the Tokyo company run at 13–21% of its revenue
Purchases and charges of every kind from The Pokémon Company as a share of Pokémon Korea’s revenue, %, calendar 2017 to 2025, from its audited accounts.
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| Calendar year | Everything Pokémon Korea booked from the Tokyo company, as a share of its revenue, % of revenue | Source |
|---|---|---|
| 2017 | ||
| 2018 | ||
| 2019 | ||
| 2020 | ||
| 2021 | ||
| 2022 | ||
| 2023 | ||
| 2024 | ||
| 2025 |
Everything Pokémon Korea booked from the Tokyo company, as a share of its revenue. From the related-party note in Pokémon Korea’s audited accounts: purchases and charges of every kind from The Pokémon Company, divided by revenue. The note gives a total for each counterparty and does not say what was bought.
TPCi is buying its supply chain, and the latest purchase has not closed
TPCi has taken the Western business in-house one layer at a time. Pokémon USA took over the English card game from Wizards of the Coast in 2003 and all licensing outside Asia from 4Kids in 2006, and was renamed in 2009. In 2022 it agreed to buy Millennium Print Group, the North Carolina company that had printed its cards since 2015.
The next layer is distribution. In February 2026 TPCi signed to buy Excell, a Des Moines company founded in 1996 that manages and supplies trading-card shelves for US retail chains and that TPCi called its “largest U.S. distribution partner”. The deal needs regulatory approval, and no closing was on record at the end of October, eight months later. Excell is mid-sized, with 489 members in its staff profit-sharing plan, and it also carries Pokémon’s rivals. Target lists 60 One Piece, Digimon and Upper Deck card items under Excell’s name.
On our estimate a full year of Excell would add ¥2.1–24.4bn of Pokémon sales to the group, a small sum beside the subsidiaries’ total, and less the later it closes. Fig. 4 shows the range by closing date. The purchase matters more for position (what each route to the shelf leaves TPCi is on Trading cards). On our reading of UK, EU and US rules, nothing stops a publisher from choosing which retailers it supplies; what the rules restrict is telling an independent distributor whom to sell to. A distributor that TPCi owns is no longer independent, so the approval of the purchase is the point at which a regulator has a say.
Excell would add ¥2–24bn of Pokémon sales in a full year, and less the later it closes
Our estimate of the Pokémon revenue Excell would bring into the group in the year to February 2027, ¥ billion, by closing date. No closing had been announced by the end of October 2026.
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| Closing date | Pokémon sales Excell would add, our estimate, ¥bn | Source |
|---|---|---|
| A full year | (2.1–24.4) | |
| Closing on 1 December 2026 | (0.5–6.1) | |
| Closing on 1 February 2027 | (0.2–2.0) |
Pokémon sales Excell would add, our estimate. Our estimate of the Pokémon revenue that owning Excell would bring into the group, scaled by the months left in the year after closing. No closing had been announced by 30 October 2026, and Excell’s sales of other publishers’ games would come on top.
Its licences rest on trademarks that Nintendo of America owns
TPCi signs the West’s licences, and the American trademarks it licenses are registered to Nintendo of America (the registers are set out on The brand). In the US records we could read there is no licence, consent or assignment that passes those marks to TPCi. What exists is a declaration by Nintendo to US customs that TPCi and its licensees are authorised users. It appears on 46 of 70 current records, on none recorded up to 4 March 2021 and on every one recorded or renewed since 21 July 2021. TPCi had been licensing those marks for at least nine years by then, as a toy licence that Tomy disclosed, running from 2012, shows. Fig. 5 counts the records by year.
Nintendo’s US customs records named TPCi on no Pokémon record before 2021 and on every one since July 2021
Nintendo’s current Pokémon trademark records at US customs, by year recorded or last renewed, and how many name TPCi as an authorised user. 46 of 70 current records do.
- Nintendo’s current Pokémon trademark records at US customs
- Of which name TPCi as an authorised user
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| Year recorded or renewed | Nintendo’s current Pokémon trademark records at US customs, records | Of which name TPCi as an authorised user, records | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2017 | |||
| 2018 | |||
| 2019 | |||
| 2020 | |||
| 2021 | |||
| 2022 | |||
| 2023 | |||
| 2024 | |||
| 2025 | |||
| 2026 |
Nintendo’s current Pokémon trademark records at US customs. The 70 current records, each counted in the year it was recorded or last renewed.
Of which name TPCi as an authorised user. 46 of the 70. The latest record without TPCi is dated 4 March 2021 and the earliest with it 21 July 2021.
What it adds up to
Pokémon Korea, whose charges from Tokyo have stayed within 12.8–21.0% of revenue since 2017, files its 2026 accounts in spring 2027.