Pokemon TCG Pocket Hits $1.25 Billion Launch Year and Triggers Physical Card Shortage

To celebrate its global launch a year ago today, Pokemon TCG Pocket has released a video revealing the following stats:

• 18 billion booster packs opened
• 111.7 billion cards collected
• 96 million trades conducted (launched four months into release)
• 12 billion battles held
• 490 million showcases created
• 6 billion likes sent
• 150 million app downloads

Pocket players collected 10x more cards than the physical Pokemon TCG printed in its best year. However, this isn't a 1:1 comparison since players receive two free packs a day from the immediate convenience of their phones.

The Pokemon TCG printed 11.9 billion cards from March 2022 to 2023 (its best year) and 10.2 billion cards from March 2023 to 2024. The latter period largely predates the current shortages that started in fall 2024. Once next year's numbers are revealed, we'll learn what Pokemon's max printing capacity is during heightened demand.

The release of Pocket undoubtedly sparked the current shortages of the physical Pokemon TCG. According to TCGplayer's pricing data, median card prices began climbing immediately after Pocket launched. (I've edited their graph below to mark when the app's soft launch occurred, which makes the start of the climb even clearer.)

According to AppMagic, which tracks data from Apple and Google, Pocket's first year generated more revenue than the first year of every other Pokemon app ever released. The app earned around $1.25 billion, which is about $245 million more than Pokemon GO earned in its first year.

While Pocket's monthly spending has trended downward, the app still generates more money than Pokemon GO each month, which still averages to about $30 million. It remains unclear whether Pocket's revenue has stabilized, but today's launch of Mega Rising featuring Mega Evolutions is expected to draw more players back to the app.