It isn’t just parents and onlookers feeling drained by Pokemon Go players, as the drag on phone batteries boosts portable charger sales.

The swelling ranks of Pokemon Go users shuffling through the streets have turned to portable battery packs to boost their smartphone’s battery life while hunting for Pokemon, according to several Australian retailers.

The augmented reality game uses GPS on mobile devices to detect fictional Pokemon characters which users then find by travelling to their location.

But the game’s use of GPS, Wi-Fi, camera and microphone poses a big drain on battery life.

Since the game launched in Australia on July 6, JB Hi-Fi, Officeworks and online retailer Kogan.com have seen a spike in the sale of portable chargers, also called power banks, for mobile devices.

Online sales of the accessory had increased by more than 200 per cent according to Kogan while Officeworks said already strong sale of portable chargers had been bolstered by the game’s release.

“Our power banks have become hugely popular in recent weeks, which we’ve put down to Pokemon Go,” Officeworks head of technology Toby Watson said.

A point echoed by JB Hi-Fi merchandise and marketing director Cameron Trainor, who said stores had stocked up in preparation for the game’s release.

“We’ve seen a real jump,” Trainor told AAP.

The popularity of the game has also flowed into global markets as the stock price of Tokyo-listed Nintendo, part owner of the game’s developer Niantic Labs and The Pokemon Company, had almost doubled in a matter of weeks.

US-listed ZAGG, parent company of Mophie, which sells phone cases equipped with a built-in battery for extended phone use, has also seen its stock price spike since the launch of the game.

“The Pokemon Go craze has taken the need for a Power Bank to the next level,” Kogan’s head of products Russell Proud said.

Kogan founder and CEO Ruslan Kogan said: “I’m too old to understand what’s going on here. The last game I played on my phone was Snake.”