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Tech

These Charts Show Pokémon Go’s Ridiculous Growth

By
Anne VanderMey
Anne VanderMey
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By
Anne VanderMey
Anne VanderMey
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July 21, 2016, 1:58 PM ET
Pokemon GO Fans Converge At Sydney Opera House
SYDNEY, AUSTRALIA - JULY 20: Pokemon GO players meet at Sydney Opera House on July 20, 2016 in Sydney, Australia. The Opera House hosted a Pokemon gathering, adding lures to all nearby Pokestops. The augmented reality app requires players to look for Pokemon in their immediate surroundings with the use of GPS and internet services turning the whole world into a Pokemon region map. The hugely popular app has seen Nintendo shares soar following its limited release in the US, Australia and New Zealand on July 6. (Photo by Brendon Thorne/Getty Images)Photograph by Brendon Thorne — Getty Images
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When the augmented reality game Pokémon Go debuted in July, it quickly became the biggest mobile game ever, edging out Candy Crush Saga and handily surpassing Twitter (TWTR) in terms of active users. But just as astonishing was the speed at which the craze took hold, racking up three to six times as many downloads as other hot games over its first week, according to research firm Sensor Tower. We asked them to plot out the rise of Pokémon Go in relation to other major, successful launches. It’s not even close:

pokemon_web

Granted, that growth can’t last forever. Nintendo’s stock price has already dipped a bit after gaining billions in market cap just after the game launched, prompting some to call a Pokémon bubble. But even if the game doesn’t hold the country’s collective imagination for very long (it is a cellphone game after all), augmented reality has now officially gone mainstream. Expect imitators to follow.

BRI.chart-pokemon

A version of this article appears in the August 1, 2016 issue of Fortune with the headline “Pokémon Blasts Off At The Speed of Light.”

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By Anne VanderMey
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