Pokémon Company Profits May Be Down, But They're Still Riding The Pokémon GO Wave

Is it just me, or do net profits of 10-20 million per year seem a little bit... low, for a company like The Pokémon Company?

I mean, you have the TV show, the trading cards, the video games, the movies, the many, many, many toys and other merchandise. I don't know, I'd expect higher numbers.

@Akropolon Yeah, it actually does.

@Akropolon I wonder if it is after parent companies like Nintendo take a cut?

I'm really curious to see why their costs are so high.

@Chayshirin I assumed so, yes. But still, even then...

Then again, it's of course a company that doesn't make anything, as far as I know. They pretty much only license the Pokémon brand, meaning that not only does Nintendo get a cut on pretty much everything, but so do the manufacturers of the merchandise.

Still, I just... I just can't fathom these numbers. I believe I've read somewhere that the merchandise alone was responsible for more than 2 billion USD in revenue in '14 or '15. How do you go from 2 billion to less than 20 million?

@Chayshirin Yes, Net profit is after CEO salary and Nintendo have been paid... 😊

@Akropolon indeed it is strange. Pokemon Go also generated something around one billion$ in revenue. It is no Battlefield or Metal Gear Solid, the development costs cannot possibly be that high to eat all that. Someone is bagging all the money!

"Pokémon Company Profits May Be Down"

Wait till the proper new Pokemon will be released...on Switch! People will go Ape!!

@Akropolon The Pokemon Company only handles external licensing—GameFreak did it themselves until it got to be too much to handle—so there's lots of people that also get a cut of merchandise sales. Gross revenue was about $295 million!

The $2 billion number is an estimate of total retail sales, not their licensing take. Retail sales for this year were estimated at $3.5 billion by the same source.

I may be wrong, but isn't there a pattern here that sees years of higher profits coinciding with major Pokémon releases on 3ds? (Sun/Moon, Omega Ruby/Sapphire, X/Y)

Gamefreak and Nintendo get a cut of the money.

Plus google and Niantic also gets a cut of Pokémon Go

With it coming out soon in China, they will make more money soon enough, looking forward to finally being able to play...2 years after its release in the west, the wierd thing is Ingress works great here besides needing a VPN its even weired that Niantic say its because google is banned here but using a VPN lets everything work fine

So everyone is talking about the cuts and low costs. I know that pokemon go will rack in the money every so often. When they add new Pokemon then there will be more people buying things. Wait till the switch game comes out, then there will be more money. It all takes time.

Welp when pokemon switch comes out they will be back to riding high.

Just remember how much Go exploded when it first came out. Of course a large chunk of people will get bored after 2 years. Thus those increased profits would go back to normal levels before Go.

And maybe not release a 3rd version in a 2 version just a year later. USUM just felt underwhelming for me.