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Nintendo Stock Continues To Rise After ‘Pokémon GO’ Release, How Long Will It Last?

By Jean Mendoza
Published on: 21:02 PST, Jul 11, 2016

Following the Pokémon GO release last week (July 6) in the U.S., Australia, and New Zealand, Nintendo’s stock reportedly rose 9.3 percent. An updated report now states that, since the game’s launch, Nintendo’s share price increased 24.52 percent to ¥20,260, or $193. This increase in share price is considered the highest price surge seen by Nintendo in a day in 33 years, as The Verge reports.

Pokémon GO is an augmented reality GPS-based mobile application that allows users to capture and train their own Pokémon. The app is free to download, but there are microtransactions within the game. Pokémon GO was created by Niantic in partnership with the Pokémon Company.

As of July 8, according to statistics from SimilarWeb, Pokémon GO has been installed in 5.16 percent of Android devices in the United States. In addition to that, more than 60 percent of users who have downloaded Pokémon GO play the game daily.

The official release in New Zealand, U.S., and Australia had other fans all over the world green with envy, and they decided that they, too, needed to get their hands on the game. Instead of waiting for the release of Pokémon GO in their countries, fans decided to download the apk (Android application package) of the game from torrent sites. In the same report from Similar Web, traffic to apkmirror.com reportedly rose 3.6 million. The site’s traffic was reportedly only 600,000 before the release of Pokémon GO, and the number rose to four million on the day of Pokémon GO’s release.

With the rise in Nintendo’s stock, Nintendo’s market value increased by $7.5 billion. According to equity analyst Mia Nagasaka, in order for Nintendo to get a significant profit from Pokémon GO, the game has to get $140 million each month, as reported by CNBC. On the day of the game’s release, the estimated turnover was at $3.9 million to $4.9 million, so $140 million is not an impossible number to reach, considering the game has only been officially released in three countries. The challenge is keeping the fans interested and having consistently high numbers every month.

“If Pokémon Go holds on to the top spot for sales, like other top-ranking titles, we would assume that monthly turnover reaches 10 billion yen or higher, but given particular characteristics of apps, at this point, we cannot comment with high certainty on its sustainability.”

Bloomberg‘s Tim Culpan mentioned the Wii console and stated that Wii’s release 10 years ago boosted Nintendo’s stocks, but after two years, the stock price normalized. Will Pokémon GO have the same result?

Pokémon GO’s launch in other countries has been paused as Niantic’s servers have been overloaded. While the interest in the game is high right now, the question is, will Pokémon GO be able to sustain its fanbase? Fans expect to see more features and more Pokémon in the future, and those are some ways to keep players interested in the game.

Pokémon fans in countries where the game has not been released will have to wait for a launch date, but according to a report from The Verge, via The Wallstreet Journal, fans in Europe and Asia can download Pokémon GO “within a few days.” There has been no official announcement on the date, but the source, who is said to be someone “familiar with plans for the game,” said that fans in Europe and Asia will be getting their hands on the game soon.

[Photo by Mike Lawrie/Getty Images]

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