Pokemon Go Is On A Roll

Yup, it appears that everybody loves those cute and weird monsters. There is no denying the obvious -- the Pokemon Go game is a big hit in the United States mobile market. But how big exactly? The makers of this new augmented reality game has not published any official figures yet, but that has not stopped others from trying to measure Pokemon Go’s phenomenal success (so far).

Making full use of a predictive model of Google Play and Apple’s App Store, apps analytics company SensorTower has estimated that there have been a total of about 7.5 million downloads for Pokemon Go in the US alone by Android and iOS mobile users. To put that into the context of revenues, that is equivalent to earnings of about $1.6 million a day. For comparison, Clash Royal, one of the more recent mobile game hits, is estimated to be earning about $350,000 a day on iOS.

Of course, it is quite possible that the Pokemon Go game will not be able to sustain these numbers. But one has to admit, Pokemons are an entirely different beast compared to your favorite Clash characters. Add the fact that as of this writing, Pokemon Go only includes the original roster of 150 Pokemon. There are still another five hundred remaining of this little critters, and possibly more with new franchise releases from Nintendo.

Other Pokemon Go achievements -- the game has managed to surpass Tinder in terms of the number of installs on Android powered devices in the US mobile market. Oh, and as the worldwide deployment of the app continues this week, Pokemon Go adds $9 billion to Nintendo’s value, basically raising the company’s market cap to $28 billion.

Various industry watchers have marveled at Pokemon Go’s impact, especially with regards to how the game drives user traffic in the real world. When you look at most apps today, they attract traffic too, but mostly in the digital sense. With Pokemon Go, not only does it cause hordes of mobile users to download and install the game, but also has people doing something real out on the streets, neighborhoods, and other places. 

And the domino effect is striking because it is not just mobile users joining in on the fun. Various business establishments are now using “Lures” to get Pokemon hunters to go visit their stores or shops. For the uninitiated, Lures are in-game items designed to attract Pokemon Go players. But in order for Lures to work, stores must have a PokeStop in the first place, which means that a number of businesses are now scrambling to get Niantic Labs (the developer of the game) to add PokeStops to their shops.