Most games tend to fade away a few years after being released. Pokémon Go is an outlier (to say the least) and has been generating record-breaking amounts of revenue for Niantic. It’s been doing better than ever, despite being released five whole years ago. 

According to a brand new report by Sensor Tower, Pokémon Go has generated over $5 billion in revenue in just five years. Let that number sink in. We’re talking about one of the most successful video games of all time! 2020 was especially lucrative as it brought in over $1.3 billion in revenue. Interestingly enough, H1 2021 has been +34% more successful than H1 2020, which means the game could, by all means, reach the $1.8 billion mark by the time the year’s over. 

Truly spectacular numbers, no doubt! 

U.S. players have generated around 36.6% of the game’s total revenue, with Japan coming in at a close second (32%). Interestingly enough, Germany happens to be third, albeit with a much more modest 5.4%. Android users have spent a bit more on the game thus far (around $2.7 billion), although iOS gamers aren’t trailing much behind at $2.4 billion. 

Pokémon Go has been downloaded around 630 million times, with 77% of downloads coming from the Google Play store. This means that iOS users make up just 23% of the total number, which tells us that those on Apple devices tend to spend a lot more on the game. These numbers are more astounding given that the whole world shut down because of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. 

Fortunately, Niantic shipped a slew of updates that kept the game as fresh and engaging as ever — a truly commending feat, given how the whole point of Pokémon Go is to go outside and explore the world around us.

Gaming — like so many other industries — revolves around profit. The higher the numbers, the better. And, by the looks of it, mobile gaming has quite a bright future ahead of it. It should come as no surprise, then, that so many developers are boarding the hype train and are trying to get their biggest IPs onto mobile as quickly as possible. 

It’s no secret that mobile gaming generated the most profit — this one fact can’t be overstated. What the whole industry will look like in a decade remains to be seen, but it’ll surely be mobile-centric. After all, why target those who shelled out on an Xbox when you can target anyone with a mobile phone in their pocket?