Pokemon GO Increases Battery Pack Sales By 101%

Pokemon GO can be credited for a variety of things, including high data usage, increased traffic [...]

By Matthew Aguilar

Pokemon GO Pikachu

Pokemon GO can be credited for a variety of things, including high data usage, increased traffic to public parks, and the reason that mainstream fans know what a Pincer or a Weedle is.

It's also contributed to the bottom line of many a portable power pack developer, as the popularity of Niantic's addictive mobile title has increased battery pack sales by 101% (via NPD). While NPD admits that some of that was of course due to normal promotions and sales, most of it can be credited to Pokemon GO.

Before Pokemon GO launched, sales of portable battery packs had plateaued at about 4% above where they were last year. Two weeks after Pokemon GO's release, portable battery pack sales have reached 1.2 million units. For a free to play game to have that much influence is pretty impressive.

"Pokémon Go is the summer's hottest game partly because it utilizes features like location, motion sensors and augmented reality in your smartphone- however, these features consume more of the phone's battery life," said Ben Arnold, executive director, industry analyst for consumer technology at The NPD Group. "As a way to compensate for the extra battery usage, consumers are buying portable power packs so they can continue to play, uninterrupted."

The game is notorious for eating up your battery, but the developer has said before that they are working on ways to reduce its power usage. In the meantime, you'll just have to bring some extra power along. Pokemon GO also eats up your data like candy, but there isn't a pack for that as of yet.

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