The Pokemon Company has released their worldwide sales data for fiscal year 2022/2023 (as of March 31, 2023), and they have sold 9.7 billion Pokemon cards, for a lifetime total of over 52.9 billion cards. It’s the Pokemon Trading Card Game’s most successful year again in the last 7 years.
When compared to last year’s financial results (which were also the best year in the preceding 7 years) of 9.1 billion cards, the sales difference (an increase of 0.6 billion cards) is 6.59%. In addition, the number of card sales has increased by 22.4%, from 43.2 billion to 52.9 billion.
That is good for 18.3% of their lifetime sales sold in their fiscal year of 2022/2023.
Some TCG sales history data from the past fiscal years:
As of March 2023: Over 52.9 billion cards worldwide in 14 languages and 89 countries and regions
March 2022: Over 43.2 billion cards worldwide in 13 languages and 77 areas
March 2021: Over 34.1 billion cards worldwide in 13 languages and 77 areas
March 2020: Over 30.4 billion cards worldwide in 13 languages and 77 areas
September 2019: Over 28.8 billion cards worldwide in 13 languages and 77 areas
March 2019: Over 27.2 billion cards worldwide in 12 languages and 77 countries and regions
March 2018: Over 25.7 billion cards worldwide in 11 languages and 74 countries and regions
March 2017: Over 23.6 billion cards worldwide in 11 languages and 74 countries and regions
Between 2014 and 2016: Over 21.5 billion cards worldwide in 10 languages and 74 countries and regions
Between 2004 and 2010: Over 14 billion cards worldwide in 30-40 countries
It doesn’t seem Pokemon kept accurate records for the total number of cards printed before 2017. However, it’s likely the reported change in totals from year to year is now accurate. Therefore it may be dubious to conclude around 18% of all Pokemon cards ever printed were made last year, as Pokemon may not have been keeping reliable records for much of its history.
An odd thing I just worked out, which might even get ignored, but the cards produced in the fiscal year 2022-23 are enough to cover the average distance between the Earth and the Moon twice.
Each card is 2.5 x 3.5 inches - 6.3cm wide x 8.8cm long. Connecting them top to bottom to create maximum distance. The average distance between the Earth and the Moon is 384,400 km. That’s 8.8 cm x 10 billion, which equates to 88 000 000 000 cm or 880,000 km in total.
An absolutely useless fact, but at least you can impress your dates by saying, “The number of Pokemon cards produced in FY 22/23 is more than double the average distance between the Earth and the Moon.”
Basically, 9.7 billion cards in 1 year is insane. During the mid-2000s, they were printing between 125 and 250 million cards per year. Basically, we’re talking about as much as an 80x increase in yearly print run.
acshully, the longest distance on the card would be 10.82 cm, which is the corner to corner distance. BUT, that’s assuming the corners are square cut. We would have to factor in the fillet for true max distance
