While Pokemon fans have their eyes squarely focused on Pokemon Sword & Shield, which are due out in November and are already available to preload, Niantic's mobile title Pokemon GO is continuing to be a success for both the company and Nintendo. In fact, according to Sensor Tower, it has been estimated that the game has recently earned over $3 billion in lifetime gross revenue.
Pokemon GO first launched in 2016 and, since then, has been download approximately 541 million times worldwide, with an average revenue of roughly $5.60 per every download. While the game is free-to-play, players can spend money on in-game purchases like Poke Balls and other items. Due to it being its launch year, GO made most of its money in 2016, generating about $832.4 million; an impressive feat considering it had a limited release and was only available in select countries at the time.
This year, the game has grossed $774.3 million so far. While this is less than what it made in 2018 (ending the year at $816.3 million), Sensor Towers suspect that it could potentially beat that and maybe even surpass its 2016 record. The inclusion of events such as the arrival of Team Rocket is believed to have helped tremendously. Team Rocket were added to the game back in August and Sensor Towers estimated that this alone grossed about $110 million in that month alone.
The United States is reported as being the leader in terms of user spending, with players based there having spent nearly $1.1 billion, which makes up 36.2% of the game's total lifetime revenue. It is also the country that has downloaded Pokemon GO the most, boasting 99.3 million unique installs. This means 18.4% of all downloads were done in the U.S. Japan, meanwhile, is the second highest grossing country, with its players spending $884.5 million.
Niantic have shown no signs of slowing down when it comes to supporting Pokemon GO, with no doubt many more updates still to come in the future. Pokemon from Generation 5's Unova region were only recently added to the game, meaning players can now get their hands on the likes of Snivy, Tepig, and Oshawott, with three Generations worth of Pokemon still to come.
We also know that Galarian forms from Sword and Shield are planning to be added to Pokemon GO at some point thanks to a recent datamine, though they most likely won't be added until at least after the release of Sword and Shield, and players will probably have to wait even longer for any of those games' original Pokemon to be included.
Pokemon GO is available right now for mobile and Android devices.
Source: Sensor Tower