The game is available for download for both iOS and Android on App Store and Google Play respectively. However, Laura Martin at investment bank Needham & Co is of the opinion that Pokémon Go’s ratio of paid users who are playing the game is much higher than that of Candy Crush from King Digital.
Advertisement
The app could be worth a Wailord-sized $3 billion in revenue to Apple, thanks to the cut of any money the company takes from companies that operate in its app store. Yes, the world has gone nuts for Pokemon Go, which lets users catch virtual monsters in the real world by throwing balls at them.
The game is now estimated to have 21 million players in the US. In addition, Alphabet, Google’s parent company, will benefit from its ownership stake in Niantic Labs, the company that developed and released the app after it spun off from Google a year ago.
Apple Inc stands to rake in $3 billion (roughly Rs. 20,173 crores) in revenue from the Pokemon Go craze in the next one to two years as gamers buy “PokeCoins” from its app store, brokerage Needham & Co said. The “Pokemon Go” app is downloaded twice as often to iOS devices as Android in the US, implying that there were 14 million iOS users, according to AppInstitute, she said. Sensor Tower, an app analytics firm, reported that Pokemon Go has become more famous game in USA than Facebook and WhatsApp and people are spending more time on playing game.
As of Monday, “Pokemon Go” has 21 million active users in the USA across all devices, up from zero on July 5, Martin said.
The game, which has been rolled out in 35 countries, is also available on Android devices. She added caveat that the magnitude of upside for Apple from the game depends “on consumer adoption timing”.
Advertisement
Pokémon Go is a Japanese game can be downloaded for free of cost but iPhone users can use PokeCoins to enjoy extra features. But again, it’s early days for the game, and the novelty of Pokemon Go may wear off sooner or later.
