Cards are The Pokémon Company’s engine and its biggest exposure. On our model they bring in ≈¥290bn a year, 25–31% of group revenue, and unlike the games, the show or the toys, they are printed to TPC’s own order, so a glut would be TPC’s loss. Yet the one card number TPC publishes is a lifetime counter, 85bn “at least” by March 2026. Read year by year, it says the print has run 10–16% below its 2024 record for two years, while the Tokyo company’s revenue rose from ¥297.5bn to ¥531.4bn, TCG Pocket included. Growth now comes from what each card fetches and which route it takes to the shelf, not from printing more, and of each dollar of list price TPC’s Western arm keeps about 46–49¢.
This page explains how those three numbers fit together, what changed in 2026, and why this boom is not a repeat of 2001. The forensic detail on the counter is on Print; resale prices are on Collector market.
The only number TPC publishes is a lifetime counter
TPC states no annual print figure on any page we have captured. It keeps a running total, and that total has changed meaning twice. Until 2020 it counted cards shipped; from 2021 it counted cards produced, which flatters the jump that year. From March 2025 it lost its decimal and became a floor: “at least 75 billion”, then “at least 85 billion”. Subtracting one March from the next gives the print: 9.1bn in the year to March 2022, a record 11.9bn in the year to March 2024.
After that the floors only allow ranges: 10.1–11.2bn for the year to March 2025 and 9.0–11.0bn for the year to March 2026. The press figures of 10.2 and 10.0 billion are subtractions of the same rounded totals, not TPC statements. Whether 2026 was above or below 2025 cannot be read. What can be read, however the two years split, is that together they averaged 10–16% below the record.
The print peaked in 2024 and has run lower since
Pokémon cards a year, billions, years to March, by differencing TPC’s running total. The 2025 and 2026 bars are ranges: TPC now rounds the total down.
- Cards a year, from TPC’s running total
- Since 2025: range, because TPC now rounds the counter down to a floor
Shipped until 2020, produced from 2021. Since the 2024 record, each year sits in a range below it; neither year is stated by TPC.
Built from and .Show the numbers
| Year to March | Cards a year, from TPC’s running total, bn cards | Since 2025: range, because TPC now rounds the counter down to a floor, bn cards | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2018 | – | ||
| 2019 | – | ||
| 2020 | – | ||
| 2021 | – | ||
| 2022 | – | ||
| 2023 | – | ||
| 2024 | – | ||
| 2025 | – | (10.1–11.2) | |
| 2026 | – | (9.0–11.0) |
Cards a year, from TPC’s running total. Each bar is one March reading of TPC’s lifetime counter minus the one before; TPC states no annual figure. To 2020 the counter counted cards shipped, from 2021 cards produced, so the 2021 bar mixes the two.
Since 2025: range, because TPC now rounds the counter down to a floor. From March 2025 TPC shows the counter as “at least 75bn”, then “at least 85bn”. Read as floors to the nearest billion, each year lies in the range shown. Together the two years averaged 10–16% below the 2024 record however they split.
Over the same two years the shelf rose. Western shelf sales of Pokémon cards in 2025 were 1.45 to 1.87 times the year before, on a world print of 0.80 to 1.09 times, so value per card must have risen by a third or more: premium products, price mix and channel stock, not volume.
Where the money in a pack goes
Follow a dollar of list price from the shelf back to TPC. A hobby shop pays roughly half of list; a distributor between the shop and TPC’s Western arm keeps a slice for moving the stock. In its own Pokémon Center stores TPC keeps all of it. Blended across routes, on our estimate, TPC’s Western arm keeps about 46–49¢ of each dollar. No company publishes these shares, so each route in the chart is a bounded estimate, and the bounds are wide.
What TPC’s Western arm keeps, by route to the shelf
Estimated cents per dollar of list price, by route to the shelf. A store can use more than one route, so the bars are routes, not stores. Every bar is an estimate; no company publishes these shares.
- Estimated range
- Own stores: the publisher keeps all of it
- Most likely, all Western sales
Through distributors TPC keeps well under half of list. In its own Pokémon Center stores it keeps all of it.
Built from and .Show the numbers
| Route to the shelf | Estimated range, ¢ of each $ | Own stores: the publisher keeps all of it, ¢ of each $ | Most likely, all Western sales, ¢ of each $ | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Pokémon Center, own stores | – | – | ||
| GameStop, buys direct | (50–65) | – | – | |
| Via a distributor such as Excell | (38–59) | – | – | |
| Hobby stores, via distributors | (38–50) | – | – | |
| Europe, via Asmodee | (35–50) | – | – | |
| All Western card sales | (35–59) | – | – | |
| All Western, most likely | – | – | (46–49) |
Estimated range. No route’s share is published, so every bar is a bounded estimate. Hobby: store cost of 50–56% of list less an assumed distributor margin (ceiling 56¢). Excell: wide because its margin is assumed, and whether Excell takes title to Target’s or Walmart’s cards, rather than managing the category for a fee, is not confirmed. GameStop says in its annual report that it buys directly from manufacturers; a store can also use more than one route, so the bars are routes, not stores. Europe: derived from Asmodee UK’s filed margin. The all-Western blend uses illustrative weights.
Own stores: the publisher keeps all of it. Pokémon Center is 100¢ by construction; how much it sells is not published.
Most likely, all Western sales. The central part of the blended range. Excell was signed in February 2026 with no closing on record, so it has not changed the latest year’s share.
That slice is still TPC’s largest line, ≈¥290bn on our central case. With TCG Pocket, which also sells random packs, the two make up 31–51% of group revenue; cards alone are the smaller figure above. TPC’s margin on cards is not disclosed; backed out from comparable companies it is probably in the thirties, close to what Magic’s owner reports for its card business. That is a publisher’s margin, earned by carrying a publisher’s stock.
The route is where TPC can still move the number. In February 2026 TPCi agreed to buy Excell, the distributor that serves the big American chains; by the end of October no closing had been announced. Once it closes, the distributor’s margin moves inside, worth ¥2–24bn of revenue a full year at last year’s volumes.
Price is set by the pack, not by demand
TPC prices a pack by what kind of pack it is, not by what might be inside. In Japan the standard pack’s price per card had held since 2023. From May 2026 new expansion packs went from ¥180 to ¥200 for five cards, and TPC cited raw-material costs, not the resale premium. The premium tier has not moved: the high-class pack still listed at ¥550 for ten cards in November 2025.
Japanese list prices move on costs, by pack type
Japanese list price per card, tax included, by type of pack and year of release.
- Standard expansion pack
- High-class pack
- 30th anniversary pack
The standard pack has risen twice, in 2023 and May 2026, both times citing costs. The high-class pack has not moved since 2020.
Built from and .Show the numbers
| Released | Standard expansion pack, ¥ a card | High-class pack, ¥ a card | 30th anniversary pack, ¥ a card | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2016 | – | – | ||
| 2017 | no figure | – | – | |
| 2018 | no figure | – | – | |
| 2019 | no figure | – | – | |
| 2020 | no figure | – | ||
| 2021 | no figure | no figure | – | |
| 2022 | – | |||
| 2023 | – | |||
| 2024 | – | |||
| 2025 | – | |||
| 2026 | – |
Standard expansion pack. ¥33 a card from December 2016, ¥36 from 20 January 2023, ¥40 from 22 May 2026. The 2023 rise was put down to raw-material and logistics costs, the 2026 rise to raw-material costs. Each year shows the last sampled pack of that year, so 2026 shows ¥40 although January’s pack was still ¥36.
High-class pack. ¥550 for 10 cards on every pack from November 2020 to November 2025, so its premium over the standard pack shrank as the standard rose.
30th anniversary pack. ¥360 for 6 cards, released 16 September 2026.
When a set sells out, TPC prints more or rations its own stores. Of 12 shortage notices on its Japanese site since 2023, none raised a price. Its rationing stops at its own channel: every dated purchase limit at other shops, from Target to Bic Camera, was set by the shop, and TPCi says it “cannot be directly involved in determining which retailers receive product”. Demand at list still outruns supply: Storm Emeralda, in July 2026, went out by lottery at Pokémon Center and by a ten-pack cap at Lawson.
Twelve shortages, no price rise
Shortage notices on TPC’s Japanese site, 2023 to 2026, by what they announced.
Every notice answered a shortage with more printing or buying rules. None raised a price.
Built from .Show the numbers
| What the notice announced | Shortage notices on the company’s Japan site, 2023–2026, notices | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Supply: more production, reships | ||
| Warnings against resale | ||
| ID-verified allocation | ||
| List-price changes |
Shortage notices on the company’s Japan site, 2023–2026. Twelve notices, April 2023 to June 2026. The count is a minimum: only pages that were fetched. The two list-price rises of 2022–2026 came in separate notices that cited costs, not shortages.
2026: a record half that cards cannot yet claim
Nintendo’s share of affiliate profit, most of it TPC’s, reached ¥60.8bn in the six months to September 2026, up 37.7%. It is tempting to credit cards. The record cannot, yet. Taking out TCG Pocket’s fade, the yen and the games leaves ¥13–38bn of the rise unexplained. Nintendo names no driver, and the 30th Celebration set, the series’ first simultaneous global release, went on sale on 16 September 2026 and lands in the next quarter. The full reading of Nintendo’s line is on Nintendo.
Nor is it a Japanese card-game boom. In April to June 2026, Bushiroad’s card games in Japan fell 17.6% while Nintendo’s Pokémon pickup rose 45.8%.
Japan’s card category fell while Pokémon’s pickup rose
Change on the same quarter a year earlier, April to June 2026, %. Bushiroad is a gauge of the card category, not of Pokémon.
- Bushiroad’s card games (Weiß Schwarz, Cardfight!! Vanguard and others)
- Nintendo’s equity-method income (mostly its share of TPC’s profit)
- Fall
Whatever lifted Nintendo’s Pokémon line in spring 2026, it was not a rising tide across Japanese card games.
Built from and .Show the numbers
| Line, April–June 2026 | Bushiroad’s card games (Weiß Schwarz, Cardfight!! Vanguard and others), % y/y | Nintendo’s equity-method income (mostly its share of TPC’s profit), % y/y | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| Bushiroad cards, Japan | – | ||
| Bushiroad cards, all markets | – | ||
| Nintendo’s share of Pokémon profit | – |
Bushiroad’s card games (Weiß Schwarz, Cardfight!! Vanguard and others). Bushiroad’s quarter to June 2026, from its filed cumulative figures: the Japan line by subtraction. A gauge of the Japanese card category, not of Pokémon.
Nintendo’s equity-method income (mostly its share of TPC’s profit). Nintendo’s quarter to June 2026, which takes in TPC’s March–May 2026. It is Nintendo’s share of affiliate profit, not TPC revenue, and Nintendo names no driver for it.
The singles market has also cooled: between 20 July and 9 October the chase cards that lead TCGplayer’s dollar rankings fell between 20% and 45% in market price. That is resale, and none of it is TPC’s revenue, but it is what collectors weigh before buying the next box.
Why this boom is not 2001, and why the risk is TPC’s
The cards nearly did not survive their first boom. Wizards of the Coast, owned by Hasbro, printed them for the West; its Pokémon card sales reached $570m in 2000 on a trade-press estimate and fell to about $101m the next year. Hasbro blamed “obsolescence cost incurred associated with overproduction of certain trading card games, primarily POKEMON related”. TPC took the English game back in 2003 and has run it since as if it remembers: fixed list prices, reprints and rationing rather than printing for a craze.
Japan’s card-game market has shrunk only once since 2015: down 16% in 2017, then up 23% the next year.
Japan’s card-game market has shrunk only once since 2015: down 16% in 2017, then up 23% the next year
Card-game and trading-card sales in Japan at list prices, all brands, not Pokémon alone, ¥ billion, years from April. The 2025 point is the Japan Toy Association’s estimate.
The one fall, in 2017, was made up the next year. Since then the category has grown every year and more than tripled.
Built from and .Three things are different now. The buyer is older: in the United States nearly one adult in five bought Pokémon cards for themselves in six months, and “only a quarter of them actually play the game”. The print is flat, not chasing the shelf. And new English booster boxes now open above their list price, at about one and a half times list for 2025’s sets against well below list for 2023’s. The detail, including how that premium cools, is on Collector market.
The stake is also different. In 2001 a licensee carried the stock. Today TPC orders the print, and on our model cards and TCG Pocket together, both sold as random packs, are a third to a half of its revenue. One of the two is already shrinking: DeNA’s game revenue fell a third in the quarter to June 2026 as Pocket’s average monthly players dropped from 39m to 23m. The print is the half TPC still controls.