Pokémon Go was released exactly five years ago. Niantic’s smartphone game has totaled more than $5 billion in sales to date, according to analysts. In the first half of this year, turnover was higher than ever.
On July 6, 2016 , Niantic began distributing Pokémon Go for Android and iOS in a number of countries. In the Netherlands and Belgium, the game was not yet available on that day, but Android users could already get started by downloading the apk outside the Play Store. In the weeks after its release, Pokémon Go became a worldwide phenomenon and the AR smartphone game regularly made the news, for example because of groups of players causing nuisance and suspicious situations .
The game was immensely popular at release, but had many technical problems and was incomplete, concluded in a review at the time . In the years since its release, Niantic has greatly improved and expanded the game. Numerous new features appeared and with them more opportunities for players to spend money in the free-to-play game. For example, the game got Raid battles in 2017 and Research missions were added a year later . Also in 2018, the game gained the ability to trade Pokémon . In 2019, a battle pvp feature was added and since 2020 it also works with online matchmaking.
All of this has resulted in more than $5 billion in revenue for Niantic, according to analysts at SensorTower . According to the analyst firm, 36.6 percent of total revenue comes from the United States. Japan is in second place with 32 percent and Germany is in third place with 5.4 percent. SensorTower estimates that Pokémon Go has been downloaded about 632 million times to date.
2020 revenue would have been $1.3 billion, an increase of 41 percent from the previous year. According to SensorTower, Pokémon Go is also doing very well in 2021. In the first six months of this year, the game is said to have generated revenue of $642 million. That would be 34 percent higher than sales in the first half of last year.
