It’s been a banner year for The Pokémon Company: Pokémon GO was a global phenomenon and the latest full-on Pokégame for the 3DS sold very well indeed. One would expect the company to be doing well financially — perhaps even doubling or tripling last year’s profits. Well, apparently it quinvigintupled them, which is to say multiplied by 25 times. (I had to look it up.)
The news comes courtesy of TechCrunch (CrunchGear, technically) alum Serkan Toto, who noticed the line item in Japan’s Kanpo gazette. Private companies don’t have to report all their financials, but many post a summary in the gazette regularly.
Last year’s net profit was a mere $5.6 million, down from $18.4 million the year before that (probably owing to Pokémon X&Y sales). But this year’s net profit? ¥15.92 billion, or $143.3 million. That’s more than 25 times last year’s take.
We knew the game was printing money, of course — it had reportedly created a billion in revenue as early as February. Unfortunately, there’s no exact breakdown of these enormous amounts; for example, how much came from in-app purchases and how much came from sponsorship deals. We recently found out that McDonalds and others are paying surprisingly large sums to… lure customers to their stores.
The gravy train won’t stop there, either. Who knows how much they’re making from Magikarp Jump?
Featured Image: Bryce Durbin