Pokemon Go Makes $5 Billion In Five Years

Pokemon Go is a year older and a billion dollars richer this week, as a new report from Sensor Tower has marked the fifth anniversary of the game with an impressive milestone. Five years since it first launched on iOS and Android, the Niantic-developed game has so far earned $5 billion. On average that means that Pokemon Go has earned $1 billion per year and leads the genre of mobile geolocation augmented reality games by a wide margin.

2021 may just be the best year ever for Pokemon Go, as Sensor Tower’s data indicated that the game has had its best-ever start to a year, with revenue up by 34% in the first half of the year when compared to 2020. Going back even further, this figure when compared to 2017’s first-half total shows a 130% increase.

When it comes to which countries have generated the most lifetime revenue for the game, America leads with 36.6% of lifetime player spending or $1.9 billion, while Japan takes second place with 32% and Germany ranks number three with 5.4%.

Of the 632 million downloads recorded, the lion’s share belongs to Google Play with 77% of installs, which works out to approximately 487 million downloads. The App Store may only have 23% of total installations to date, but 144.8 million downloads is still an impressive number.

That momentum is likely to increase when Pokemon Go Fest 2021 takes place on July 17 and 18, with this year’s event once again being a virtual affair. Niantic is bringing every Legendary Pokemon so far back for five-star Raids, which will include the debut of the mythical Pokemon Meloetta as part of an exclusive Special Research story.