Pokémon Masters Catches $33 Million Globally in Its First Month

Pokémon Masters had the second highest grossing launch month for the franchise on mobile, Sensor Tower Store Intelligence data reveals. Developed by DeNA, which also created Mario Kart Tour for Nintendo, the title has generated an estimated $33.3 million in player spending since its release on August 29.

How that performance compares to the other Pokémon franchise games on mobile can be seen in the chart below. While Masters has grossed more in its first month than the majority of mobile titles from The Pokémon Company, it still can't compare to Pokémon GO. That title generated nine times more spending than Masters in the month following its release, across a smaller subset of only five markets, grossing a total of $302 million.

Still, Masters has vastly outperformed the most recent mobile releases from The Pokémon Company. Pokémon Rumble Rush, which launched close to two months prior to Masters, only managed to generate about 2 percent as much revenue in its first month with player spending of approximately $760,000. Before that, the company released Pokémon Quest in late June 2018, which saw spending of $7.6 million in its first month, or 23 percent of Masters' total.

Japanese Players Lead Spending

Japan has led spending in Masters, contributing close to 58 percent of the title's $33.3 million first month sum, or approximately $19.3 million. Players in the United States represented 19 percent of spending, or $6.3 million. Hong Kong, Taiwan, and France comprised the remainder of the title's top five markets during its launch month with $2 million, $1 million, and $920,000 spent by players there, respectively.

Total spending during the game's first week of availability averaged close to $3.5 million per day. This has decreased over time, averaging $230,000 per day for the past week.

The game has been installed by close to 12 million players globally to date across the App Store and Google Play, placing its average revenue per download at $2.80. The Japanese player base for Masters has spent an average of $12.90 per download, significantly above the global average, which matches what's been seen with Pokémon GO in that market. U.S. player spending per download has been below the worldwide average at $2.33.