Phone Battery Pack Sales Double After Pokémon Go Release

Pokémon Go has been big business for at least one industry — manufacturers of phone battery packs.

Sales of "portable power packs designed to charge mobile devices such as smartphones and tablets" soared following the release of the app, according to NPD Group, a research company that tracks what people are buying. Sales of battery packs between July 10 and July 23 — the game debuted on July 3 — more than doubled when compared to that same time period a year ago, NPD Group said.

The game works with the GPS function on players' phones and places virtual monsters on the map nearby. Players walk around and catch the monsters, which they can use to battle other players.

It's proven to be an addictive nationwide phenomena. It also eats away at phone batteries.

So portable phone chargers seem like a perfect fit for players of the game, who can just take out a battery pack, plug in their phone and keep playing without having to be near an outlet. Some of the more powerful battery packs can fully charge a phone four or five times in one outing.

Talk about catching them all.

“Pokémon Go is the summer’s hottest game partly because it utilizes features like location, motion sensors and augmented reality in your smartphone — however, these features consume more of the phone’s battery life,” NPD Group's executive director Ben Arnold said in a press release. “As a way to compensate for the extra battery usage, consumers are buying portable power packs so they can continue to play, uninterrupted.”

Battery packs are increasing in popularity as it is.

Year-over-year sales are up 35 percent over the last 12 months, ending in June 2016, according to NPD Group. In the six weeks before Pokémon Go was released, though, sales were up just 4 percent.

In those two weeks after Pokémon Go launched, a total of 1.2 million phone chargers were sold.

Image via Anker/Amazon