The Pokémon Company has announced it has entered into an agreement to acquire Millennium Print Group, the company that prints its famed trading card game. The Pokémon Trading Card Game first launched in North America in 1998 and took the world by storm, becoming an instant hit with children and collectors everywhere. As of March 2021, the game has sold over 34.1 billion cards worldwide.
According to The Pokémon Company, “the company responsible for management of the globally popular Pokémon brand outside of Asia, has entered into agreement to purchase North Carolina-based Millennium Print Group, a manufacturer and printer of trading cards and associated packaging in the US.” Continuing, “The two companies have been business partners since 2015 with Millennium Print Group serving as longtime printers of The Pokémon Company International’s best-selling product, the Pokémon Trading Card Game.”
The acquisition comes as a result of The Pokémon Company’s goal to “further develop Millennium Print Group’s capabilities, infrastructure, and scale to become a premier printer of trading cards, serving the broader industry. Millennium Print Group will continue to operate as a separate, autonomous organization, but will gain both investment and industry- expertise from The Pokémon Company International.”
The President of The Pokémon Company International Kenji Okubo said on the acquisition, “By joining forces in a more meaningful way, our goal is to enhance the ways our organizations work together and continue to bring the highest quality Pokémon TCG products to market. Simultaneously, we aim to develop Millennium into an even better, bigger, state-of-the-art version of their already exceptional organization, benefitting not just Pokémon, but all of their customers.”
Millennium Print Group prints the Pokémon Trading Card Game in the US. The CEO of the company Terry Pegram said on the partnership that has lasted over a decade, “In that time, we have had the opportunity to develop an amazing relationship with the expert team at The Pokémon Company International, an organization with a special culture who lives its values every day.” It will certainly be interesting to see what is next for the trading card printing company.
