The Pokémon Company has acquired the company that prints the trading card game

The Pokémon Company has acquired Millennium Print Group, a company that prints cards for the hugely popular Pokémon Trading Card Game. Millennium Print Group has been working with The Pokémon Company since 2015.

“With this acquisition, The Pokémon Company International aims to further develop Millennium Print Group’s capabilities, infrastructure, and scale to become a premier printer of trading cards, serving the broader industry,” The Pokémon Company said in a press release. “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.”

Pokémon cards have been very popular during the pandemic, with The Pokémon Company going so far as to publicly pledge that it would print more cards in February 2021 to meet demand. (eBay even added a feature to its app letting people scan trading cards to make them easier to sell.) This acquisition suggests that The Pokémon Company expects demand to continue for Pokémon cards and for other kinds of trading cards, too.

“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,” Kenji Okubo, president of The Pokémon Company International, said in the release.