Pokemon GO still generating about $2m a day - Newzoo

Pokemon Go has certainly faded since its impressive start, but the location-based mobile game is still driving very healthy revenues for Niantic. According to a new report from Newzoo, revenue levels reached a peak of $16 million per day about three weeks after the game launched and have now leveled off to a steady $2 million each day (including the 30% fee for app stores). Pokemon GO is also still being downloaded about 700,000 times a day. And it's important to keep in mind that Pokemon GO has yet to officially launch in South Korea and China, so there's potential for a growth spike. Overall, the game has seen over 550 million installs and $470 million in revenues in its first 80 days since launch.

"Pokemon GO has opened our eyes in many ways. It has refreshed the top grossing mobile game ranking that has been dominated by a small number of publishers and games for a long time. It has proven beyond a doubt that AR can be applied in ways that appeal to a mass audience. Equally important from a business perspective, it has given Niantic investor Google enormous insight and data that it can incorporate into its location-based advertising and services strategy. The fact that Pokemon GO has motivated kids and youngsters to spend more time outside is an additional bonus, even if that means they take their screens with them," stated Newzoo CEO Peter Warman.

Not only did Pokemon GO give developer Niantic a major boost, but it also helped to grow the overall mobile gaming audience. Newzoo found that the game brought in over 20 million new mobile gamers across the US, UK, Germany, and France alone. So far, these four countries have accounted for 39% of all downloads on Google Play and 62% on iOS devices. In a separate blog post from the Google Cloud Platform blog, Google also explained that the surge in players actually resulted in traffic 50x the initial target.

"This appeal to a new gaming audience has made Pokemon GO the most popular franchise across every country we studied. In fact, 37% of gamers across these four countries have played Pokemon GO in the past three months. This puts the game well ahead of Candy Crush Saga at #2 which was played by 27% of gamers. Niantic's game has been the major beneficiary of these new mobile gamers, as it currently tops the charts in all countries. If even a fraction of Pokemon GO players were to flow into the rest of the ecosystem, such an influx could prove helpful to the mobile gaming industry as a whole," Newzoo commented in its report.

Interestingly, Newzoo also found that Pokemon GO has not only managed to draw older players who grew up with Pokemon back to the brand, but it's also attracting a core gaming crowd.

"...it appears to be a broadly traditional gaming audience, despite its newness. We looked at which gamers are most likely to be playing the Niantic hit and the results were quite surprising. After players of the regular Pokemon franchise, Dota 2 and Smite gamers are most likely to be playing Pokemon GO. In fact, 80% of these gamers have played Pokemon GO in the past three months. It also emerged that only 46% of Candy Crush Saga gamers were playing the title. The crossover was much higher among Supercell players, with 77% of Clash Royale players also playing Pokemon GO," the firm noted.