Twitch is probably the largest livestreaming platform with a keen focus on video games, and some other forms of entertainment. The platform was founded in 2011 by Justin Kan as a spinoff of his previous project, Justin.TV. Justin.TV was a single channel platform that broadcasted his daily life and activities around the clock, thus giving birth to “Lifecasting”.
The website attracted other users who wanted to follow in Kan’s footsteps of broadcasting their day-to-day activities. At the same time, they didn’t want to watch Kan do stuff all day as well. Acting on this newfound interest for the platform, Kan relaunched Justin.TV in 2007 and allowed its users to create their own channels and broadcast content.
After the launch, user interest for streaming video game piqued, but it wasn’t really the sole purpose of the platform. But with the overwhelming demand, the gaming category of Justin.TV branched out into Twitch.TV.
Twitch as a platform outgrew Justin.TV by a mile, which left Kan to pivot and rebrand. Justin.TV shut down in 2014.
In 2014, Amazon did to Twitch what Google did to YouTube, and that was to acquire the platform. Amazon purchased Twitch for $970 million that same year [1], which left people wondering if Amazon did the right thing.
Twitch statistics further showed that traffic still grew with more than a million broadcasters and up to a hundred million monthly viewers a month on average. Since then, that number grew and we now have streamers like Ninja hosting 18.5 million followers and generating six-figure views every time he goes live.
In this article, we’ll go over some very interesting Twitch statistics, including but not limited to highest earning Twich channels, number of Twitch users and unique viewers, and more.
Key Twitch Stats
- Twitch was acquired by Amazon for $970 million cash [1].
- Twitch generated 15.54 million mobile device downloads in Q4 of 2021 [2].
- Twitch earned $74.47 million in revenue through in-app purchases in Q4 of 2021 [3].
- There are 7.47 million active streamers on Twitch as of June 2022 [11].
- The United States accounts for 21.55% of Twitch desktop traffic within a six-month period of observation [12].
- Gender distribution for Twitch users is 65% male and 35% female [15].
How Much Is Twitch Earning?
So how much is twitch earning in terms of ads, IAP, and downloads?
- In Q4 2021, Twitch app generated 15.54 million downloads to all mobile devices, and downloads for the mobile app continue to increase significantly [2].
- In Q4 2021, Twitch generated $74.97 million in revenue through in-app purchases (IAP) worldwide. The app is available on Android and iOS devices globally [3].
- In 2020, Raul Alvarez, or AuronPlay, was the highest earning Twitch streamer based on advertising income. The streamer generated $545,245 in earnings just from advertising [4].
- In 2019, Amazon generated $1.54 billion in revenue, higher than Youtube’s $1.46 billion that same year [5].
- 2021 was a great year for Twitch. The platform hit $1 billion in consumer spending, making its way into the top 10 non-gaming apps with the highest annual consumer spending [6].
On the platform, you’ll find their virtual products called Bits. These products allow you to financially support their creators, on top of the monthly subscriptions that’s shared to these partnered and affiliated Twitch channels.
When a Twitch channel is subscribed to, or given bits to, the viewer unlocks several perks such as subscriber-only emojis, their own icons, and more. Twitch streamers can also create raffles where subs and bits donated are considered as entries.
Which Streamers Have The Most Twitch Viewers?
As of August 2022 and spanning 30 days since, here are the top 10 Twitch streamers with the highest Twitch viewership. (The following figures are for average number of viewers) [8]:
- AuronPlay – 80,090
- Rubius – 78,706
- AdinRoss – 72,375
- loud_coringa – 67,566
- IlloJuan – 67,435
- Ibai – 66,780
- xQc – 65,284
- AsmonGold – 53,021
- Elspreen – 51,961
- QuackityToo – 50,341
Twitch Channels With Most Number of Followers
As of July 2022, here are Twitch statistics for the most popular Twitch channels according to number of Twitch followers [9]:
- Ninja – 18.29 million
- AuronPlay – 13.29 million
- Rubius – 12.45 million
- Ibai – 11.32 million
- Tfue – 11.13 million
- xQc – 11.01 million
- Shroud – 10.23 million
- TheGrefg – 10.04 million
- Pokimane – 9.22 million
- SodaPoppin – 8.79 million
Twitch Game Stats
Twitch viewership for these games are at an all-time high, consistently. On these list you’ll find the most watched video games for the current year [10]. Note that we will not be including the category “Just Chatting”.
- League of Legends – 5,928,342,296 hours watched
- Grand Theft Auto V – 5,377,731,263 hours watched
- VALORANT – 4,228,151,402 hours watched
- Apex Legends – 2,542,277,982 hours watched
- Counter-Strike: Global Offensive – 2,526,933,007 hours watched
- Fortnite – 2,384,836,264 hours watched
- Dota 2 – 1,766,606,660 hours watched
- Lost Ark – 1,643,775,419 hours watched
- Minecraft – 1,622,920,242 hours watched
- Slots – 1,619,016,830 hours watched
These are the most popular games on Twitch this year, with the numbers in total amount of Twitch concurrent viewers the game has had for a given time frame. In this case, these are the number of viewers that the game has had for 2022.
And yes, people do spend time watching other people build and design Minecraft houses.
The numbers don’t lie for these Twitch statistics as well. The more views a Twitch game has, the more popular it is in the platform.
League of Legends continues to be the most popular game on Twitch right now as it’s consistent with concurrent viewers and Twitch viewership for their e-sports is almost always within 5 or 6-digit numbers.
It’s worth noting that League of Legends and Grand Theft Auto V are neck and neck in terms of bagging the top spot for most watched game (excluding the Just Chatting categories).
The Just Chatting category, which is the category that non-gamers are putting their content on, has the highest total number of views consistently. This category does not stream the most popular games, but rather you’ll find musicians, chefs, podcasts, and more. Viewership for this category alone is always in the millions every month.
Statistics On Twitch Users
- As of June 2022, there are 7.47 million active streamers on Twitch, which was down from 9.8 million recorded in January of 2021 [11].
- For six months ending in May 2022, The United States accounts for 21.55% of Twitch desktop traffic worldwide, and Germany following with 6.87% [12].
Since its inception in 2011, the number of Twitch partners increased tenfold. The Twitch Partner scheme is their revenue program for streamers and content creators. Twitch content creators will need to meet certain requirements such as number of hours streamed, average viewers, and number of days streamed to qualify for the program.
The first level of the program is Twitch Affiliate. This allows streamers to earn through ad revenue and through subscriptions. Twitch Partner is the highest level of the program and content creators that become Partners get more incentives and a more generous compensation package.
From 2012 to 2021, here is the Twitch stats for number of Partners (those who qualified for Affiliate or Partner) worldwide (in million) [13]:
- 2012 – 3.4
- 2013 – 5
- 2014 – 10
- 2015 – 13.5
- 2017 – 27
- 2019 – 35.6
- 2020 – 51.48
- 2021 – 51.5
Twitch Demographics
Age distribution of users are as follows (in%) [15]:
- 16 to 24 years old – 41%
- 25 to 34 years old – 32%
- 35 to 44 years old – 17%
- 45 to 54 years old – 7%
- 55 years and older – 3%
Gender distribution for Twitch users as of 2021 [15]:
- Male – 65%
- Female – 35%
Interesting Twitch Viewers and Users Behavior
- 58% of Twitch users posted a product review, service, or company in the past month, or posted a comment in a forum in the previous month [15].
- 45% of Twitch users mentioned that they’d buy a product simply because of the experience provided by the community that’s built around it [15].
Other Interesting Twitch Streamer Statistics
- The average concurrent viewers for 2022 is 2,567,762 [15].
- The number of 24-hour average viewers is 2,464,222 [15].
- The ratio of viewers to streamers is 27.6% (2,567,762 viewers is to 92,971 streamers) [15].
- The average concurrent channels is 95.5k [15].
- Average monthly broadcasters for 2022 is 7.93 million. In 2021, the average monthly broadcasters is 8.46 million [15].
Wrap Up
With that said, we’ve answered a lot of questions, like how many people watch Twitch streams or how many viewers are certain video games getting, and more. Concurrent viewers are always within the five-digit range, and the hours watched on a monthly total are always in millions.
Let’s not forget the fact that the consumer spending for Twitch has reached $1 billion in 2021, making them one of the top 10 non-gaming apps for consumer spending.
Reference
And the Twitch stats just prove how big the streaming platform is compared to other platforms (i.e. YouTube and Facebook Live). The top video games hosted on Twitch are generating a billion hours or so every year, and the numbers just keep rising.
[1] https://www.businessinsider.com/amazon-buys-twitch-2014-8
[2] https://www.statista.com/statistics/509989/twitch-monthly-unique-visitors-worldwide/
[3] https://www.statista.com/statistics/517907/twitch-app-revenue/
[4] https://www.statista.com/statistics/1248067/top-earning-twitch-streamers-advertising-revenue/
[5] https://www.theloadout.com/twitch/youtube-revenue
[6] https://www.digitalmusicnews.com/2022/02/01/twitch-surpasses-one-billion-consumer-spend-2021/#:~:text=Twitch%20surpassed%20%241%20billion%20in,by%20annual%20global%20consumer%20spend.
[7] https://socialblade.com/twitch/top/100
[8] https://twitchtracker.com/channels/viewership/personality
[9] https://www.statista.com/statistics/486914/most-popular-twitch-channels-ranked-by-followers/
[10] https://twitchstats.net/all-time-views
[11] https://www.statista.com/statistics/746173/monthly-active-streamers-on-twitch/
[12] https://www.statista.com/statistics/511558/twitch-traffic-by-country/
[13] https://www.statista.com/statistics/1132996/number-twitch-partners/#statisticContainer
[14] https://www.statista.com/statistics/746173/monthly-active-streamers-on-twitch/
[15] https://blog.gwi.com/chart-of-the-week/the-rise-of-twitch/
[16] https://sullygnome.com/90
[17] https://sullygnome.com/longtermstats
[18] https://sullygnome.com/games/2021/
