Apple may rake in $3bn in revenues with Pokemon Go’s “PokeCoin” sales

The wild craze around augmented reality gaming app Pokemon Go can rake in revenues to the tune of $3 billion in next one or two years for Apple Inc, as gamers buy "PokeCoins" from its app store.

The game, marketed by Japan's Nintendo, can be downloaded for free but iPhone users can use PokeCoins to buy additional features. A pack of 100 PokeCoins costs 99 cents in Apple's app store, but the price can go up as much as $99.99 for a pack of 14,500.

“We believe Apple keeps 30 percent of Pokemon Go's revenue spent on iOS devices, suggesting upside to earnings,” Needham analyst Laura Martin wrote in a client note on Wednesday.

Pokemon Go had 21 million active users in the United States alone as of July 18, less than two weeks after it went live. The game, which has been rolled out in 35 countries, is also available on Android devices.

The ratio of paid users to total users for Pokemon Go is 10 times that of Candy Crush, the hit game from King Digital that generated more than $1 billion of revenue in both 2013 and 2014. Users in the United States are spending far more time playing the game than they are using Facebook or WhatsApp, according to app analytics firm Sensor Tower.