42 Useful and Updated Twitch Stats for Influencer Marketing Managers

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Twitch is one of the more specialized social networks. The average person has probably never heard of it. Yet if you are a gamer, Twitch is big. It is the video streaming network of choice for gamers, and it enjoys a surprisingly sizable enthusiastic fan base. Amazon clearly considered Twitch to have potential because it bought the streaming video platform in 2014, just before its third birthday. Since then, it has gone from strength to strength.

We have written quite a few articles on Twitch, and we have discovered that it is an ideal network for brands that sell to a market of typical gamers.

There are a surprising number of websites offering statistics and analytics relating to Twitch. If you are a Twitch streamer, Twitch provides you with a detailed dashboard, analyzing your own gaming and broadcasting on the platform.

We present selected Twitch statistics that highlight just how popular the network is. We have prepared this article in January 2022, and the statistics quoted refer to the last year unless otherwise stated.

42 Useful and Updated Twitch Stats for Influencer Marketing Managers:

1. 233,935 Concurrent Channels at Peak

TwitchTracker reports that the all-time peak for concurrent channels on Twitch occurred on December 1, 2020, when there were 233,935 simultaneous streams. Interestingly, the best day in 2021 also occurred in December (December 4), when there was a peak of 211,931 channels.

As of writing, Twitch has an average of 92,300 concurrent channels and 2.46 million average concurrent viewers, both of which are relatively lower compared to 2021 and 2022. This year, channels streaming on the platform each declined by 5%, bringing the total to just over 7.2 million channels compared to 2022’s 7.6 million and 2021’s 8.5 million. Peak viewers in June 2022 reached 6,642,217.

2. 92,300 Average Concurrent Live Channels (2023)

TwitchTracker also informs us that in 2022, there was an average of 92,600 concurrent streamers broadcasting over the day. 2023 saw a slight decrease in the number of average concurrent broadcasts, with 92,300 channels broadcasting simultaneously. However, 2022 proved to be a challenging year for the platform, following a series of scandals and the announcement that the platform will take a larger portion of subscription profits from content creators. Moreover, 2023 is seeing a decline of the platform’s popularity, with overall viewership (hours watched and average concurrent viewers) declining at 9.4% YoY.

3. "Just Chatting" Is Still the Most Popular Category on Twitch in May 2023

Although we think of Twitch as being primarily a platform where gamers can stream their playing, the most popular category is the aptly named Just Chatting. The average number of viewers who are "Just Chatting" at any moment in time was 364,882 in December 2021, which is greater than the most popular game, League of Legends, which averaged 128,092 viewers (although that rose to 223,716 in mid-January 2022).

In May 2023, “Just Chatting” amassed a total of 260 million Hours Watched, with around 917,000 peak viewers. In terms of Hours Watched, “Just Chatting” is followed by League of Legends, Valorant, Grand Theft Auto V, and Counter-Strike: Global Offensive. During that same period, the most popular Twitch channel was BLAST Premier, which had an airtime of 126h 5m and accumulated 12.6 million Hours Watched. BLAST Premier was followed by xQc, Gaules, kingsleague, and Riot Games.

4. 2,331,987 Peak Views of Fortnite Last June 2020 Dropped to 203,439 in 2023

Sullygnome reports that the peak viewing of Fortnite, so far, came in June 2020 when the most watching a Fortnite game at any moment in time was 2,331,987. 

Fortnite had a particularly good day in December 2021, peaking at 1,270,408 concurrent viewers. This is up from a peak viewership of just 371,676 in the previous month. However, in 2022 and 2023, peak viewership of Fortnite declined, having only 1,024,567 peak viewers in December 2022 and 203,439 peak viewers in May 2023.

5. 7.25 Million Active Streamers Worldwide

As of May 2023, Twitch has 7.25 million active streamers worldwide, indicating a relatively small decline from 2022’s numbers, which saw the platform with 7.6 million streamers and close to 2.6 million concurrent viewers.

6. Ninja Is Still One of the Top-Ranked Streamers on Twitch

With 18.5 million total followers, Ninja remains one of the most popular streamers on Twitch. From November 2016 to June 2023, he had over 616,000 peak viewers and a total of 357 million Hours Watched. On average, Ninja has over 10,000 followers per stream, with his most popular games being Fortnite Zero Build and Fortnite.

7. From June 2022 to June 2023, Over 3 Billion Hours Were Spent Watching Just Chatting Channels

In 2021, Just Chatting channels amassed 3,020,771,657 hours. Between June 2022 and June 2023, the number of Hours Watched hit 3,066,025,546, with over 34 million hours of broadcast, according to SullyGnome. During this same period, the Just Chatting community had, on average, nearly 4,000 channels and more than 350,000 viewers.

8. The Most Watched Game in 2022 was League of Legends

League of Legends takes the top spot for the most watched game on the platform in 2022, having amassed close to 1.5 billion hours watched. Other popular games in 2022 include Grand Theft Auto V, Valorant, Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, Apex Legends, and Fortnite. Based on all-time views, LoL still takes the first place with nearly 60 billion views as of June 2023. It’s followed by GTA V, with almost 33 billion views, and Fortnite, with 31.32 billion all-time views.

Most popular games on Twitch worldwide | Statista

9. Close to 70 Million Hours Streamed in January 2023

In January 2023, the platform had 69,358,878 hours streamed, which was a 10.2% increase compared to December 2022’s nearly 63 million hours streamed. So far, February 2023 had the lowest number of hours streamed for 2023, with almost 65 million hours. March, April, and May saw 69.2 million, 68.8 million, and 67.4 million hours streamed, respectively.

10. 27.7 Viewers Per Stream

On average, average Twitch streamers get 27.7 viewers per stream. This may be attributed to the sheer number of streamers on the platform, with many streamers getting only a handful of views.

11. Sunday Is Still the Most Popular Day for Twitch Viewers

At any given moment, the platform has an average viewership of over 2.5 million. However, Sunday still remains as the most popular day for viewers. Can’t stream on Sundays? Saturdays are also a viable option. On the other hand, streams on Mondays usually have the lowest number of viewers.

If you’re a streamer, the optimal time to stream, according to Hootsuite, is between 11 a.m. and 2 p.m. (PST), given that it’s usually when viewership numbers are at their peak. Because the platform has millions of active streamers, smaller channels may be up against a lot of competition. The good news is, if you’re a smaller channel that wants to expand your reach, you can stream between 12 a.m. and 4 a.m. (PST) as this is when the number of other live streams usually drops.

12. Twitch.tv Is One of the World’s Top Websites

Twitch.tv is still one of the world’s most popular websites. Depending on your sources, it’s ranked #35 (Similarweb) or #84 (RankRanger).

13. TwitchCon 2022 Expected Around 90,000 Attendees

Twitch has a real-world event, TwitchCon, which had 35,000 attendees the first time they held it in 2016. In 2017, it was held in Long Beach, with 50,000 people turning up.

Aside from popular streamers like pokimane and xQc, musical artists such as Kim Petras and Meet Me at the Altar performed at TwitchCon 2022, with Megan Thee Stallion headlining the TwitchCon Party. The number of guests who attended TwitchCon 2022 hasn’t been publicly released. However, KPBS estimated that for the three-day event, around 90,000 people were expected. In 2023, TwitchCon is held in two cities: Paris (July 8-9,2023) and Las Vegas (October 20-22,2023).

14. Twitch Was 3rd in Chinese iOS Market Before Being Banned in 2018

Like many social platforms, Twitch has run afoul of at least one government. 

The Chinese government has heavily censored its internet. Unfortunately, it doesn't publish a list of the websites it blocks, so this means that users tend to learn about the demise of a site in China through first-hand experience. 

Back in 2018, Twitch was taking off in China and was popular with China's gaming community. However, in September 2018, the Chinese government clearly decided that Twitch was inappropriate for its citizens (or even visitors to China) and banned the app. At the time, it was reportedly the third most popular free app in the Chinese iOS App Store.

15. Ibai Enjoyed 3,351,678 Peak Viewers for a Single Stream

SullyGnome collects a list of the highest peak viewership of Twitch streamers over various periods. If we look at the data for the last 365 days, the highest number for a channel (excluding corporate channels like PlayStation and Riot Games) was Spanish internet celebrity, streamer, eSports caster, Ibai (aka Ibai Llanos). He managed to peak at over 3.3 million viewers for a single stream.

16. 196,215 Highest Average Viewers for a Channel in 2022

We can also discover information about average viewers from SullyGnome. Inevitably, every streamer's number of average viewers is considerably fewer than their number of peak viewers.

In 2022, the GenshinImpactOfficial channel garnered nearly 200,000 average viewers, putting it in first place in terms of channel peak viewership. It’s followed by dota2ti, with nearly 170,000 average viewers, and Manatreed, with over 146,000 average viewers.

17. Ninja Once Again Has the Most Followers – 18+ Million

It probably surprises nobody to learn that Ninja has the most followers. Except that for quite some time, he didn't – he spent much of 2019 and 2020 playing on the now-defunct Mixer platform. During that time, Tfue temporarily took over as Twitch's most-followed streamer.

Although Ninja left Twitch for some time, he never closed his account. This meant that many of his previous followers continued to follow his account, even though it lay dormant, in hiatus. However, he later returned and added a further 704,936 followers in 2021. By then, he had 17,382,149 people following him. As of June 2023, Ninja has amassed 18.52 million followers, based on data from Streams Charts.

18. The Most Popular Female Streamer Is Still Pokimane, With 9.3 Million Followers

Although Twitch has a clear male bias, women are becoming more visible, as we referred to above. The most popular of all is pokimane, with 9,337,523 followers. In second place is AMOURANTH, with 6,413,433 followers. Third place goes to AriGameplays who has 6,172,457 followers. As of writing, pokimane ranks #149 based on Hours Watched.

19. Over $18 Million in Prizes for Dota-2 Based International 2021, Partially Streamed on Twitch

While not all eSports appear on Twitch, the two are closely connected. Therefore, you will find that most significant eSports tournaments stream on some Twitch channel. The International 2022, which took place in October 2022, has a total prize pool that nearly amounted to $19 million. Tundra Esports bagged first place, with earnings amounting to a little over $8.5 million. Second Place went to Team Secret, with Team Liquid bagging Third Place.

20. In Terms of Mobile Usage, Twitch Has a 73% Market Share

According to Sensor Tower, Twitch takes the top spot when it comes to the most popular mobile live streaming platforms, with a 73% market share for Q1 2022. It’s followed by Bigo Live, Nimo TV, and Omlet. In terms of livestreaming in general, Twitch is still the number one platform, with 29 top streamers, including xQC, Gaules, ibai, and auronplay, broadcasting on Twitch.

Related Content:

21. This Year, Twitch Rolls Out New Features Designed to Help Creators Grow

With plans to help boost streamers’ growth in 2023, Twitch has rolled out several new features such as:

  • Sound Bites – Sound alerts that viewers can use to interact with their favorite streamers
  • Viewer Milestone – Allows streamers to acknowledge viewers’ milestones
  • Channel Tags – Lets streamers tag other channels, creating a link to the tagged channel

22. It’s Estimated That Twitch Will Have More Users in the Coming Years

It’s highly likely that Twitch will only grow bigger in the coming years. It’s estimated that by 2024, there will be 51.6 million US Twitch viewers. This is a relatively small increase compared to the estimate for 2023, which is pegged at 49 million. Based on Statista data, the number of US Twitch users will reach 36.7 million by 2025, a slight increase from 2022’s 33.2 million.

23. Spanish-Speaking Channels Second Most Popular to English

In 2022, English-speaking channels were still the most popular on Twitch based on Streams Chart’s language distribution data. Nearly 61% of the platform’s streamers broadcasted in English, followed by nearly 11% of streamers running Spanish-speaking channels. Other popular languages on the platform, based on Hours Watched, include Portuguese, German, Russian, and French.

24. In 2022, Twitch Only Had Nearly 20% Female Users

Based on reports from Statista and Stream Scheme, Twitch only had 20.2% of female global desktop visitors and 19.64% of female users.

25. In 2022, Over 70% of the Platform’s Viewers Were Between 18-34 Years Old

Based on recent reports from Twitch (Q1-Q4 2022), 70% of its viewers are between 18-34 years old. According to Stream Scheme, the age split is as follows:

  • 18 to 24 – 36%
  • 25 to 34 – 32%
  • 35 to 44 – 15%
  • 45 to 54 – 9%
  • 55 to 64 – 5%

26. Twitch Has More Than 31 Million+ Daily Active Visitors

More recently, Twitch reports that it has 31 million+ daily active visitors. While "users" and "visitors" may not mean precisely the same thing, it's clear that many more people watch Twitch streams now than before Covid-19. On average, over 2.5 million people watched Twitch streams at any given time.

27. Twitch Reaches 7.63 Million Monthly Broadcasters in 2022

With people staying home, watching, and playing games, 2020 and 2021 saw a massive rise in Twitch's number of broadcasters. We have taken many of the Twitch usage statistics from TwitchTracker.

Back in 2012, Twitch only had 300,000 unique broadcasters per month. It tripled this number in 2013, to 900,000. It broke the million mark in 2014 with 1.5 million broadcasters per month. 

The number of broadcasters grew relatively steady over the next few years: 1.7 million in 2015, 2.2 million in 2016, the rather vague "2+" million in 2017, 3.39 million in 2018, and 3.64 million in 2019. However, Twitch saw a tremendous leap in broadcaster numbers in 2020, reaching 6.9 million monthly streamers. This boost continued into 2021 when Twitch reached 8.46 million monthly broadcasters.

2022 saw a decrease in the number of monthly broadcasters, reaching only 7.63 million. As of writing, the platform currently has 7.24 million monthly broadcasters.

28. 1,346 Billion Minutes Watched in 2022 and 634 Billion Minutes Watched, as of June 2023

With more streamers and viewers on Twitch, inevitably, there has been a rapid rise in the number of minutes watched on the platform. Total minutes watched over the last few years have been:

twitch views

  • 2016 – 292 billion total minutes watched
  • 2017 – 355 billion total minutes watched
  • 2018 – 560 billion total minutes watched
  • 2019 – 660 billion total minutes watched
  • 2020 – 840 billion total minutes watched
  • 2021 – 1,460 billion total minutes watched
  • 2022 – 1,364 billion total minutes watched
  • 2023 – 634 billion minutes watched so far

29. 21 Billion Hours Watched in 2022

According to Twitch’s 2022 Recap, there had been a total of 21 billion Hours Watched, 223,000 Categories Watched, and 788 million Hours Streamed. There were also 11 million new streamers and 48 billion chat messages sent.

30. In 2022, Twitch Donated $50,000 to 10 Charities

Across all live channels, Twitch raised a total of over $53,000 together with the Global Speedrun Association. The platform donated $50,000 to 10 charities that were featured at the 2022 TwitchCon.

31. 2.4 Million Viewers Simultaneously Watched a Single Channel in 2021 - This Record Was Broken by Spanish Streamer ibai in 2022.

The overall record for concurrent Twitch views was the 2,468,668 peak concurrent viewers who watched Fortnite gamer David "TheGrefg" Cánovas Martínez on January 11, 2021. He created this record and the record for the most concurrent viewers for a Twitch stream by an individual. During this stream, TheGrefg revealed his personal Fortnite skin.

He already held the record for a solo streamer, but in this broadcast, he beat the record for all-time viewers, until then held by major broadcasters like ELEAGUE and PlayStation. As of writing, Spanish streamer ibai has broken Martínez’s record. ibai had more than 3.3 million viewers who watched one of his streams.

32. In May 2023, the Most Watched Video Game Release on Twitch Was Hogwarts Legacy

Based on Hours Watched, the most watched video game release belonged to Hogwarts Legacy, which had 39.1 million Hours Watched. Sons of the Forest followed suit, with 16.9 million Hours Watched. The latest installment in the Legend of Zelda franchise, TLoZ: Tears of the Kingdom amassed a total of 16.4 million Hours Watched.

Most watched release video games/ Twitch / Statista

33. 95 Minutes per Day on Average

According to Twitch, their average user spends 95 minutes per day watching live gaming. This is certainly much longer than the daily time spent on the typical social network. Instagram, for instance, claims that its younger users average 32 minutes a day on its app. It is even more than the average mobile viewing session on YouTube, which is just over 40 minutes.

During the first five months of 2023, Twitch audiences watched approximately 531 billion minutes of content, according to data from Statista.

34. KamiKat is the Fastest Growing Twitch Streamer as of June 2023

As of June 2023, KamiKat is considered as the fastest growing streamer on the platform, with a follower change of nearly 600,000. KamiKat is followed by kissulya_287, with a follower change of 588,523, and Jolygolf, who has a follower change of more than 440,000.

35. Twitch Has Over 61,000 or 51,817 Partners (Depending on Your Source)

Depending on your source, Twitch could either have 51,817 partners and 691,003 affiliates (TwitchStats) or 61,858 partners and 2,009,877 affiliates (Streams Charts).

36. eSports Content Accounts for 80% of Twitch’s Hours Watched (Q1 2022)

Twitch remains a popular platform for eSports. It has seen tremendous growth between Q1 2019 to Q1 2022 when it comes to total eSports Hours Watched, which increased by more than 63%. In the 1st quarter of 2022 alone, eSports content accounted for 80% of the platform’s Hours Watched.

37. 21% of Twitch.tv Viewers Come from the United States

According to data collated by SimilarWeb, the most frequent visitors to the Twitch website on desktop come from the United States, making up 20.74% of Twitch.tv’s total visitors. Meanwhile, German visitors make up 7.09% of the visitors, followed by Russian and French visitors, who make up 4.96% and 4.81% of the site’s total visitors, respectively.

Unfortunately, we don't have mobile visitor location data or app usage, and there are probably many more visitors on these nowadays.

38. Broadcaster ironmouse has 100,000+ Active Subscriptions

Based on recent data from TwitchTracker (June 2023), the channel with the greatest number of current active subs belongs to ironmouse, which has 178,651 active subscribers. Of these, over 166,000 are paid, 4,182 are Prime subscriptions, and 160,312 are gifted. Kaicenat is ranked #2, with nearly 80,000 current active subs, while Fextralife ranks third, with a little over 70,000 current active subs.

39. 16.00 EST is Twitch's Peak Viewing Time

Somewhat surprisingly for a platform dominated by Americans, according to Twitchstats, the peak viewing time on Twitch is 16:00 EST. Conversely, the lowest viewing time is precisely 12 hours from that – 4:00 EST.

40. 1.81 Billion Hours Watched in One Month (May 2023)

TwitchTracker keeps track of the total time people spend watching Twitch each month. In 2017, this figure hovered around the 500-600 million level each month before jumping to 700 million in January 2018 and then reaching 800 million for the first time later that year. By December 2022, the platform had 1.66 billion Hours Watched. In May 2023, it had a total of 1.81 billion Hours Watched.

41. In June 2023, Maximum Concurrent Viewers Reached Exceeded 4.5 Million

TwitchTracker reports that June 2023 saw an average of 2.45 million concurrent viewers and reached a maximum number of concurrent viewers exceeding 4.59 million. Figures for June 2023 exceed both average and maximum concurrent viewers for April-May 2023.

42. Over $2 Billion Twitch Revenue

Although Amazon doesn't publish separate financials for Twitch, various sources have made estimated figures. It’s estimated that in 2022, Twitch generated around $2.8 billion in revenue.

Twitch Stats

Twitch Stats

Twitch Stats

About the Author
Influencer Marketing Hub
Influencer Marketing Hub
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The Influencer Marketing Hub Team brings together a diverse group of experts with a passion for influencer marketing, digital trends, and social media strategies. Each piece of content crafted by this team is researched and written to provide valuable insights, tips, and updates for our readers. Our authors are dedicated to delivering high-quality, informative, and engaging articles that help businesses and influencers thrive in this rapidly changing digital world.

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