Pokémon GO set to be a $1 billion per year app

App data firm App Annie has revealed that the Pokémon GO AR game has hit number one in the app charts even faster than Clash Royale and is on course to bring in over $1 billion per year.

Despite only being officially available in the US, Australia and New Zealand Pokémon GO became the number one grossing app on both iOS and Android more quickly than previous best-seller Clash Royale.

“Even though Pokémon GO is only officially open in 3 countries, the game is generating well over $1M of net revenue for Niantic Labs,” said Fabien Pierre-Nicolas, VP of MarCom at App Annie. “I can easily envision a run-rate of over $1 billion per year with less server issues, a worldwide presence and more social and PvP features.

“Nintendo is a solid example of what game studios can achieve with a great mobile game design and monetisation strategy. Their jump in valuation by $7.5 billion reflects the potential of Nintendo’s top IPs including Mario, Zelda, Pokémon and Metroid.”

Ray Anderson, CEO of carrier billing platform Bango, reckons the game will give a boost to end-user spending on mobile. “Bango can be confident that Pokémon Go has the potential to really drive the spending of mobile users, supporting the Bango thesis that new forms of content and entertainment will drive End User Spend growth well ahead of underlying smartphone growth in the years to come,” he said.

Meanwhile one of the latest glitches to hit the game is its apparent need to be granted full access to the user’s Google account when signing in via Google on iOS. A report from Engadget revealed this potentially gives developer Niantic far more access to your Google account than it needs and the company contacted Engadget to assure them a fix was already being worked on.

“Overnight there’s been some controversy over Pokémon Go and the access it’s given to Google accounts when users sign up,” said Ed Macnair, CEO of CensorNet. “While the creators of the game, Niantic, have since said it was unintentional and will be corrected, it raises an important issue about app permissions and how much attention we pay to them. Aside from the personal privacy issues, who’s to say an employee won’t use their work Gmail account to sign-up to Pokémon Go?

“However, this isn’t just a Pokémon Go issue. Employees are often quick to download the latest app to access or share data and it’s unlikely they’ll be scrutinising what they are granting the app access to.  In the event of a hack targeting the creators, criminals will potentially be given access to a treasure trove of data – followed by the inevitable brute force attempts thanks to the cache of usernames and passwords they’ll be in possession of.”

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