Pokemon Printed Record Number of Cards in 2022

The Pokemon Company printed nearly 10 billion cards in 2022. Over the weekend, The Pokemon Company updated a list of running figures about the Pokemon franchise, which included some very eye-raising statistics about the Pokemon Trading Card Game. Approximately 9.7 billion cards were printed by The Pokemon Company between March 2022 and March 2023, setting an internal record. This marks the second consecutive year that The Pokemon Company has printed more than 9 billion cards in a year and also continues an internal streak of three years in which The Pokemon Company broke their own publicly own record. 

One of the interesting bits of the year to year tracking of Pokemon card print runs is just how much the Pokemon Company has grown over the past few years. Prior to 2019, The Pokemon Company was printing about 2 billion cards per year, but they’ve seen their print runs grow steadily in size as interest in the card game. The significant increase in print runs came in part due to The Pokemon Company (and its vendors) regularly selling out of print runs of the game during the pandemic, leading to a massive upscale in the production of cards over the past three years. Despite the growing size of the game, The Pokemon Company still has occasional issues with its print runs. A recent Japanese set caused huge crowds after fans tried to get their hands on a particular card featuring a character from Pokemon Scarlet and Violet. 

The Pokemon Company is gearing up for the release of its second Scarlet and Violet set – Paldea Evolved – which will be released on June 9th. Also recently announced was the Obsidian Flames set, which will come out in August and will feature a Darkness Tera type Charizard card.