Pokémon GO has been doing wonderful things for those involved with the hit mobile app: Nintendo saw a boost in market value, Apple's App Store saw a long-time record get broken, and now, Niantic has become the top game app developer in the world.
With all this news about Pokémon GO coming out day after day, it's easy to forget that the game hasn't been out for two whole months yet. In fact, the game isn't even available in several regions of the world, and it's even banned in others, yet it continues to roar on with no end in sight.
The report of Pokémon GO and Niantic's latest triumph comes from market intelligence firm SimilarWeb, which revealed that the success of the augmented reality game has allowed Niantic to take the crown from the reigning king, Candy Crush maker King, and knock it off its throne.
King Loses its Crown to Niantic: The Top #Game Publishers Worldwide https://t.co/UUS1FABFHA pic.twitter.com/20mbRocueT
— SimilarWeb (@SimilarWeb) Aug. 11, 2016
So, just how dominant has Pokémon GO been in this past month?
Just over a month ago in June 2016, King was the top game app developer in at least 60 countries, including the United States, Canada, Australia and the majority of Western Europe. In fact, with games such as Candy Crush Saga, Candy Crush Soda Saga and Farm Heroes Saga, King reigned supreme in the game apps world, beating its nearest competitor, Outfit7, developer of the My Talking Tom cat games, by more than 30 countries.
However, when July came around, Pokémon GO launched and literally conquered a significant chunk of King's kingdom. Major countries such as the U.S., Canada and Australia, which had once been under King's banner, flocked to Niantic. In fact, many other areas in the world, like most of Western Europe, defected to Niantic as well.
Now, Niantic is the top game app developer in 45 countries. Admittedly, this is still lower than the 60 that King had just one month before, but it's important to remember that many of the places where Pokémon GO has thrived lacks the means to download the app legally yet, as well as that the app had only one month to grow.
Meanwhile, King is only the top app developer in 39 countries, while other developers such as Hypah and Fortafy have fallen from 12 to 2 and 15 to 5, respectively. Interestingly enough, Outfit7 went up two countries during this period, nabbing Ecuador and South Africa from King.
What does this mean for Niantic?
SimilarWeb notes that, if you consider that King was purchased for $5.9 billion by Activision Blizzard, and Supercell by Tencent for $8.9 billion this year, then Niantic may be worth "upwards of $10 billion."
This estimation doesn't seem too Farfetch'd, either, since the game has generated $200 million in revenue within the span of a month.
All of this and it hasn't even rolled out in major regions such as China or India ... not bad for a company that began as a simple spinoff from Google.
