Without a doubt, The Pokemon Company has one of the most recognizable and lucrative brands on the planet with the Pokemon franchise, and as evidenced by its announcement of the results for 2016's brand licensing through the magazine License Global, the firm received a total of $3.3 billion in retail sales during 2016. Naturally, this figure is nothing to shake a stick at, especially considering the fact that it made the money during the brand's 20th anniversary year.
In order to put these sales numbers into perspective, the Walt Disney Company placed first on License Global's list of 2016's highest earners with the Mickey Mouse-owning conglomerate raking in $56.6 billion in total retail sales of licensed products worldwide, while The Pokemon Company came in 19th place–right behind the National Football League at number 18–with the Japanese firm earning $3.3 billion in total retail sales of licensed products worldwide. In the prior year, The Pokemon Company placed 29th on the list with $2.1 Billion in total retail sales, which means that the firm had a $1.2 billion increase in retail revenue and moved up ten positions when comparing 2016's numbers to 2015.
When taking into account all of the well-favored Pokemon-related products put out by The Pokemon Company in 2016, it definitely makes sense as to why the Japanese consortium earned so much money for the brand. For instance, last year saw the explosive debut of the mobile augmented reality title Pokemon GO–its success stemming from being downloaded roughly 650 million times, no doubt–and 2016 also housed the release of Pokemon Sun and Moon for the Nintendo 3DS, which became the third best-selling Nintendo 3DS titles of all time, and added to the 280 million video games from the franchise already sold.
Not to mention, the Pokemon Trading Card Game continues to be as popular as ever with 21.5 billion cards shipped globally as of 2016, and actually was the number one selling strategic card game in its class. Furthermore, The Pokemon Company also has a huge reach with the brand's animated show, as it has teamed up with Disney XD as its new US broadcast partner, with the television series including 20 seasons in all, which are shown in more than 160 countries worldwide.
All things considered, it looks like The Pokemon Company is going to continue full steam ahead with its quest to be the very best marketing and licensing firm like no company ever was, as there are a plethora of projects related to the franchise on the horizon. To be specific, production for Detective Pikachu–the first live-action Pokemon movie–is set to begin in 2017, and the Nintendo Switch is set to receive its own Pokemon game, which will certainly sell like hotcakes. So, it will definitely be interesting to see how this year shapes up for The Pokemon Company with all of its respective irons in the fire.
The Pokemon Company's most recent video game release is Pokemon Sun and Moon, which are available through Nintendo 2DS and 3DS.
Source: License Global (via NeoGAF)