The fans of popular augmented reality game "Pokemon Go" need extra batteries to play, and this specific demand comes to substantially increase battery pack sales in the United States.
According to The NPD Group, during the two weeks following the release of "Pokemon Go," the sales of battery packs doubled in the United States. The report shows a year-over-year growth of 101 percent. Just days after the game's July 6th release, between July 10th and July 23rd, battery pack manufacturers have sold 1.2 million units.
According to The Verge, "Pokemon Go" seems to be the only reason for this significant increase in battery pack sales. NPD notes that sales were only up 4 percent in the weeks prior to the release of "Pokemon Go." This clearly indicates that "Pokemon Go" is the factor that triggered the huge increase in battery pack sales.
Manufacturers of batteries for mobile phones have even created custom Pokemon batteries. This could also have helped to the sales increase.
According to Tech Crunch, this is obviously good news for the manufacturing companies specialized in producing portable smartphone chargers, but the news is not so great for users. Due to the popular game's power consumption, players are not just required to invest more in battery packs, they should also expect a shorter lifespan on their batteries as well. This is because batteries used in mobile devices might end up lasting for shorter periods of time due to the increased number of charging cycles.
Tech analysts are uncertain about how "Pokemon Go" and the battery packs will fare in the weeks ahead. The game's popularity might plateau over time, and when this happens, battery pack sales are also expected to go down.
The players of the "Pokemon Go" augmented reality game are reportedly already disappointed after the game developer Niantic's latest update killing tracking apps. However, the "Pokemon Go" game has been rolled over just a small fraction of the world. It remains to be seen how the game will be received by players from the rest of the world.
