According to the company, they claim that since May 2018, they have seen a 35% increase in active usage of the game. “Over the summer, tens of millions of Trainers around the world played Pokémon GO together every month, with a 35% increase in active usage since May. Since we introduced the new Social features at the end of June, more than 113 million Friend connections have been made and 2.2 billion Gifts have been sent to friends, showcasing how Trainers truly enjoy interacting with one another and playing together.”
There are some possible reasons as to why there was an increase. One of those possibilities is the introduction of trading which players have been asking for ever since the game was released. PVP battles (not counting raids on gyms) are also another highly-requested feature that has yet to debut, but we imagine that it will bring players back to the game.
Another possibility is the announcement of the Pokemon: Let’s Go titles for the Nintendo Switch at E3 2018 earlier this year, where the game would see it sync up with Pokemon GO, so we imagine that there are players out there who might be preparing themselves for its release later this year.