‘Pokémon Go effect’ increases mobile payment spend by 10% among other merchants in Europe

Connected commerce provider DOCOMO Digital has discovered a 10% increase in mobile commerce revenue among the top four merchants on the Google Play Store in the month since the mobile game’s launch in Europe.

By comparing Google Play Store revenue from before and after the launch of Niantic’s mobile gaming phenomenon, DOCOMO Digital discovered an unlikely trend.

While initially the game seemed to have an effect on its competitors’ revenue, including Candy Crush and Clash of Clans developers King.com and Supercell, Pokémon Go has more recently acted as a catalyst to increase mobile commerce spend.

Hiroyuki Sato, founder and CEO of DOCOMO Digital, said: “The results from our analysis were very surprising. While we expected Niantic to become the highest earning merchant in the Google Play Store, we thought that this would be at the expense of its competitors.

What this data shows is that consumers are willing to increase the amount of money they spend on and through their mobile devices, which is very promising for the future of mCommerce.”

DOCOMO Digital designs and builds mobile payment systems for over 200 mobile network operators around the world, which often include integrating these payment gateways with content marketplaces, such as Google Play Store.

Through these partnerships the company has access to mobile payment information, such as merchant identification and transaction totals.

DOCOMO Digital brings together key assets and capabilities to enable mobile commerce for mobile network operators, digital and real-world service providers, merchants and regulators. In a nutshell, it provides expertise, technology and operational services to bring to life next-generation mobile commerce platforms.

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