At this point, it’s clear that Pokemon Go has already been a huge success. It became the highest grossing app on its first day on the market and quickly became more used on a daily basis than popular apps like Facebook Messenger and Snapchat. The game continues to break records at an impressive rate and is positioned to become even more successful in the near future.
How successful? To start off, it is estimated that the game is on its way to exceeding $350 in consumer spending very soon, with the $1 billion mark not far off after that. It is even possible that the game will end up generating more money than Captain America: Civil War, the highest-grossing film of the year. The game is not just making a ton of money for Niantic and Nintendo, either. Through a licensing deal in Japan, Pokemon Gyms have been placed at 2,900 McDonald’s locations, increasing sales by 27% since the game’s release and helping McDonald’s of Japan turn a profit for the first time in two years. The game is also having an impact on smaller companies that just happen to be nearby, like Mad Hatter’s Ice Cream in Anacortes, WA, which was having a hard time making enough to stay open until a Pokestop nearby helped business increase drastically overnight. And online retailers have seen an increase of sales in Pokemon-related products of 105%. In terms of usage, Pokemon GO is the top mobile game overall, and on iOS, this is even true when broken down by each individual age and gender demographic. Those who play Pokemon GO are also three times as likely to use other apps that are used by those who spend a lot of time gaming, such as Twitch, Steam, and Clash Royale.
There has been some concern lately that the Pokemon GO growth rate is on the decline only a short time after the app’s release, suggesting that the Pokemon GO trend may be short-lived. However, the game is still awaiting launch in three major markets, which will undoubtedly impact the numbers significantly. Among the major markets is China, which tops the United States to take the number one spot in mobile gaming global revenue. Then there is also the possibility that the game will be updated in the future with features that will have a large impact on its popularity, such as in-game Pokemon trading. Either way, there is no denying the amazing success Pokemon GO has already seen, and the data at hand seems to suggest that the game has a lot more money-making ability left in it that we will see in the coming months.