Pokemon Printed Over 3.5 Billion Cards During the Pandemic

The Pokemon Company's latest financial report revealed just how many Pokemon cards were printed and sent to retailers during the COVID-19 pandemic. Earlier this week, The Pokemon Company released its annual financial report, detailing its annual sales for the first time. Additionally, the keeper of the Pokemon franchise also updated its annual tally of video games and merchandise sold, which revealed just how many Pokemon cards had been produced since March 2020. The Pokemon Trading Card Game produced approximately 3.7 billion cards between March 2020 and March 2021. According to the Pokemon TCG site PokeBeach, that's a record production since The Pokemon Company started providing these stats. Additionally, that's 500 million more cards than were made between March 2019 and March 2020.

That 3.7 billion card figure is even more impressive when you consider that the Pokemon TCG has been plagued by supply issues since the middle of the year. Given the high demand for Pokemon cards (and other trading cards) right now, The Pokemon Company likely would have produced even more cards if not for production and supply line issues caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.

We will note that this impressive number presumably counts only the number of cards printed and placed into various TCG products, so the actual number of cards sold might vary from what The Pokemon Company is reporting. However, it's still a great indicator of just how popular the Pokemon Trading Card Game is with fans right now. That could be why Target decided to quickly bring Pokemon cards back into stores just two weeks after pulling them due to inappropriate customer behavior tied to scalpers scrambling for products to re-sell.

The Pokemon Company has big plans for the Pokemon TCG for the remainder of the year. Two more expansions - "Chilling Reign" and "Evolving Skies" - have already been announced, with "Chilling Reign" due out in just a few weeks. Additionally, the Pokemon TCG is releasing 25th Anniversary products, which includes "mini-booster packs" containing only 4 cards.

Have you gotten back into the Pokemon Trading Card Game during the pandemic? Let us know in the comments section!