You would think that after the major hype during its 2016 release, the numbers for Pokémon Go in terms of revenue and download would go down three years later. But apparently, the location-based AR game has had its best year yet in 2019. It has earned almost $900 million in gross player spending and had more than 55 million installs. This means it’s the only location-based game that has managed to increase its revenue since its launch year.
According to Sensor Tower Store Intelligence figures, 2019 is the best year that Pokémon Go has had in terms of revenue, earning an estimated $894 million from player spending. This is still better than the $832 million it earned when it launched in 2016. It had a relatively bad 2017 but since then, the game has found its stride because of significant updates that kept players interested as well as in-game and real-world events.
When it comes to downloads, it had more than 55 million installs in 2019. The majority of people who installed the game were from the US, followed by Brazil and India. For the revenue, 38% of it came from the US while Japan had 32% and Germany accounts for 6% of the total. The majority of both the revenue and the downloads come from Google Play. Most mobile games get more from iOS but it seems that Pokémon Go is the exception.
Compared to other games, it was the Top 5 earner worldwide with the honor of the top-grossing game belonging to Honor of Kings from Tencent, earning almost $1.5 billion in 2019. Those sales figures don’t even include third-party Android stores that are big in China. But in terms of location-based games, Pokémon Go was really the top earner with newcomer Dragon Quest Walk from Square Enix being a far second.
The next question would be: will Pokémon Go be able to continue its good numbers in 2020? If they will be able to come up with even more events and features to keep their fanbase walking around and catching virtual monsters, of course, they would.
