Pokemon Go's Starbucks Promo Expands to 5,000 More Locations

Thousands more Starbucks locations across the United States are becoming PokeStops or Gyms for Pokemon Go, developer Niantic has announced.

More than 5,000 additional Starbucks stores have joined the existing 7,800 locations that became sponsored Pokemon Go locations when the collaboration started in December. With the new stores added, there are now more than 12,800 Starbucks stores participating in the promotion.

According to the latest available information from Starbucks [PDF], the company has more than 25,000 locations across the world, though it's not immediately clear how many stores it has in the US alone.

As part of this collaboration, Starbucks apparently created a Pokemon Go Frappuccino that players can order at any participating store.

Niantic CEO John Hanke previously explained why his company partnered with Starbucks.

"The physical locations component of the collaboration is important to us as we look for ways to use technology to encourage exploration, exercise and real world social interaction, and Starbucks’ footprint throughout the U.S. provides an awesome platform," he said.

Starbucks was not the first retail partner for Pokemon Go, as Niantic already partnered with telecom giant Sprint, which is also transforming its physical stores into PokeStops and Gyms. In Japan, Niantic is partnering with fast food giant McDonald's. Niantic confirmed it would work with retailers for sponsored PokeStops and Gyms earlier this year. We'd expect there will be more in the future.

In other Pokemon Go news, Apple confirmed that the game was the most-downloaded app on the entire App Store for 2016.