Twitch came on board as a live video streaming service, but most of us now know it as a live video game streaming service. Such is the impact of this massive social media platform on the gaming community that it has become the preferred hosting ground for esports events.
But beyond hosting fast-paced live-action game streams and connecting fans with their favorite creators, what numbers drive the Twitch engine?
Discover the answer in this curation of the most recent Twitch statistics, facts, and trends as vetted by our dedicated editorial team.
Top 8 Twitch Statistics (Editor’s Pick)
- 68% of gamers would rather watch sports on Twitch than traditional TV media.
- 78.36% of Twitch users globally were male.
- 44% of Twitch’s 2021 users were aged 15-24.
- There were over 10 million monthly Twitch streamers in Q1 2022.
- Twitch’s active viewer count record for 2022 was over 6.355 million.
- Twitch channel moderators used timeouts in 3.27 million cases in H1 2022.
- Top Twitch streamers went live for over 8 hours in 2021.
- One bit on Twitch is worth one cent in real-world money.
Infographic
<a href="https://vpnalert.com/resources/twitch-statistics/" target="_blank" data-wpel-link="internal"><img src="https://vpnalert.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/top-8-twitch-statistics.png" alt="Top 8 Twitch Statistics" width="768" border="0" height="817.92" loading="lazy" fetchpriority="low" srcset="https://vpnalert.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/top-8-twitch-statistics-768x818.png 768w, https://vpnalert.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/top-8-twitch-statistics-282x300.png 282w, https://vpnalert.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/top-8-twitch-statistics-962x1024.png 962w, https://vpnalert.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/top-8-twitch-statistics.png 1200w" sizes="auto"></a>
General Twitch Statistics
1. Twitch had 100,000+ live channels and over 2.5 million concurrent viewers in 2022.
In comparison, it only had a few thousand registered live channels and less than 100,000 concurrent viewers in 2012.
This brand awareness culminated in 11% of US social media users having a Twitch account in 2022.
3. “AuronPlay," a famous streamer, was the most preferred by 15% of surveyed Twitch gamers in 2021.
A December 2021 survey put Ibai in second place (preferred by 7.2% of gamers), and Rubius (6%) rounded up the top three. Surprisingly, third-placed Rubius had a more significant Twitch following than Ibai in second place.
4. 68% of gamers would rather watch sports on Twitch than traditional TV media.
As of 2021, only 32% of gamers chose to enjoy sports (live football, basketball, and others) on TV/radio instead.
5. Twitch streams accumulated over 1.7 billion watch hours in June 2022.
In the same month, Facebook Gaming came second with 424 million hours watched, while YouTube Gaming users amassed 292 million watch hours.
6. 9.6 million individual channels were streamed on Twitch in Q2 2022.
By the end of Q3 2022, streamed unique channels surged to 10 million.
7. Twitch users streamed 10.4 million unique channels in Q3 2021.
Thus, representing a year-on-year (YoY) decline of about 400,000 individual channels streamed on Twitch compared to Q3 2022.
Twitch Statistics by Age & Gender
8. 25–34-year-olds were the most Twitch users in 2022.
Data from May 2022 shows that this age group accounted for almost half (49.7%) of all users on the video streaming platform.
A March 2022 survey showed that 45–54-year-olds and 55–64-year-old users of social video platforms only averaged three minutes daily on Twitch.
Among the younger generation, 25–34-year-old UK social video platform users spent about five minutes daily on Twitch.
10. In 2021, 18-34 years old Twitch viewers accounted for 7 in 10 of all viewers on the platform.
By 2022, this age group represented approximately 68% of all Twitch users.
Of the older population, 35–44-year-olds had the highest representation on Twitch (15.33%).
11. 78.36% of Twitch users globally were male.
This dropped from 83.5% in 2017, seeing the female user base grow to 19.64% as of 2022.
12. In 2021, 70% of Twitch’s UK users were male.
Male viewers and streamers averaged 1 hour and 27 minutes monthly on the platform, less than the average time spent by all viewers/streamers in that period (1 hour:39 minutes).
<a href="https://vpnalert.com/resources/twitch-statistics/" target="_blank" data-wpel-link="internal"><img src="https://vpnalert.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/male-twitch-users-uk.png" alt="Male Twitch Users in UK" width="768" border="0" height="474.86010362694" loading="lazy" fetchpriority="low" srcset="https://vpnalert.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/male-twitch-users-uk-768x475.png 768w, https://vpnalert.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/male-twitch-users-uk-300x185.png 300w, https://vpnalert.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/male-twitch-users-uk-1024x633.png 1024w, https://vpnalert.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/male-twitch-users-uk.png 1158w" sizes="auto"></a>
13. 44% of Twitch’s 2021 users were aged 15-24.
The 25 – 34-year-olds claimed a 28% share of the age demographics to take the second place.
14. 2% of the Twitch UK audience in 2021 was 65 years or older.
Additionally, females in this age range outnumbered the males almost 5 to 1.
Twitch Statistics by Region
15. Twitch’s usage for sports news and content grew by 21% across 11 regions in 2021.
Traditional platforms like Facebook (-8%) and YouTube (-4%) saw negative growths in the same timeline across Brazil, France, Germany, Japan, India, Russia, Italy, Spain, S. Korea, the UK, and the US.
16. In 2021, Twitch was the most used live game streaming platform in the Western world.
Users watched over 20 billion hours of live gaming content in the reporting period. This accounted for a 26% year-on-year growth, beating YouTube Gaming which managed 4.7 billion live-game streaming hours.
8% of social media users in the US were also loyal to the platform.
Whereas another 10% of social media users caught the Twitch buzz (in the news, ads, or other social platforms) in the past four weeks leading to March 2022.
63% of UK social media users claimed to know about the platform, even though only 9% used the service.
Furthermore, another 7% of British social media users who used Twitch said they would use it again.
20. In 2021, Twitch streamers went live in 35 unique languages.
The live video streaming service also has 1,800 employees globally, according to 2023 data.
21. In Q1 2021, the Twitch app was downloaded 22 million times globally.
The US market accounted for 5 million of these installations, leading other regions.
22. Over 70% of European esports fans, enthusiasts, and watchers used Twitch in 2022.
These groups spent about 560 minutes weekly on the platform.
YouTube Gaming, in second place, saw about 350 weekly watch minutes from this set of Europeans.
23. 1 in 4 UK gamers used Twitch for online video gaming content in 2021.
In this region, YouTube (74%), Instagram (36%), and TikTok (29%) were all ahead of Twitch.
Twitch Usage Statistics
24. The sports category on Twitch grew by over 100% between 2020 – 2021 alone.
Streaming the UEFA Euro 2020 and the 2020 Summer Olympics games gave the video-based platform a 155% boost between 2020 and 2021.
25. The average Twitch streamer saw about 150 viewers per active stream in 2021.
Measuring activities across 58,000+ streamers in 2021 showed that streamers also went live for 5.4 hours (on average) daily. This translated to about 14.6 hours of total weekly Twitch streaming time.
<a href="https://vpnalert.com/resources/twitch-statistics/" target="_blank" data-wpel-link="internal"><img src="https://vpnalert.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/twitch-streamer-viewers.png" alt="Twitch Viewers per Active Stream" width="768" border="0" height="399.91854545455" loading="lazy" fetchpriority="low" srcset="https://vpnalert.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/twitch-streamer-viewers-768x400.png 768w, https://vpnalert.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/twitch-streamer-viewers-300x156.png 300w, https://vpnalert.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/twitch-streamer-viewers-1024x533.png 1024w, https://vpnalert.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/twitch-streamer-viewers.png 1375w" sizes="auto"></a>
26. There were over 10 million monthly Twitch streamers in Q1 2022.
However, there were only about 50,000 Twitch partners (creators who got paid) at that time.
27. Twitch users need an average of 75 concurrent viewers to qualify for “Partner.”
As of 2022, Twitch users also need a minimum of 50 followers to qualify to get paid under its Affiliate program.
28. Twitch affiliates must have generated 500 broadcast minutes (minimum) to get paid under the program.
In contrast, users aiming for Partner need about 25 broadcast hours (minimum) across at least 12 broadcast days to earn a spot in the program.
29. “Ninja” was the top Twitch streamer by followers in 2021.
The live-gaming streamer had 18.3 million followers by the end of the year, beating second-placed Auronplay by a 5 million follower gap.
The top five accounts and their following (at the end of 2021) are shown in the table below:
| Twitch Account | Follower Count |
|---|---|
| Ninja | 18.3 million |
| Auronplay | 13.3 million |
| Rubius | 12.4 million |
| Ibai | 11.3 million |
| TFUE | 11.1 million |
30. Over 15 million Twitch users streamed content for the first time in 2021.
Overall, Twitch viewers watched 1.3 trillion minutes of video streams in 2021.
31. The Twitch network was getting 31 million average daily visitors in 2021.
This massive audience was serviced by about 8 million Twitch streamers who went live at least once a month.
32. Twitch users sent over 48 billion chat messages in 2022.
These users also watched around 223,000 categories of Twitch live-streamed content in the year.
33. 11 million new Twitch streamers joined the platform or went live for the first time in 2022.
Combined, creators in 2022 streamed 788 billion video hours.
34. Twitch charity streams increased 250% in 2022 due to its new fundraising tool.
The tool also helped charity organizations on Twitch to raise over $1 million in 2022 alone.
35. Most gaming influencers have more YouTube Gaming followers than Twitch followers.
Out of 391 gaming influencers involved in a December 2021 study, only 0.7% had more than 50,000 Twitch followers. In contrast, 1.7% had over 50,000 followers on YouTube.
For context, these influencers used both platforms.
| Follower Count | YouTube | Twitch |
|---|---|---|
| None | 8.5% | 20.6% |
| 1 - 250 | 53.1% | 53.1% |
| 251 - 500 | 9.9% | 8.7% |
| 501 - 1000 | 6.8% | 5.8% |
| 1001 – 5000 | 11.6% | 8.3% |
| 5001 – 10000 | 3.7% | 1.1% |
| 10001 - 50000 | 4.8% | 1.8% |
36. 53% of gamers followed competitive content on Twitch in 2021.
League of Legends was the most preferred among 32.1% of gamers who followed Twitch competitive gaming content. In second place was Valorant (26.1%), and Fortnite rounded up the top three with a 20% share.
37. Almost 6 in 10 online gamers preferred Twitch to other game streaming platforms in 2021.
As of December 2021, 56.7% of surveyed online gamers chose Twitch as their favorite platform. This was followed by YouTube Gaming (32%) and Facebook Gaming (11.3%).
38. 12.7% of gamers went to Twitch to chat with others.
However, gaming was still the most significant focus, accounting for 85.6% of the platform’s usage in 2021.
39. 2.6 million Twitch viewers were on the platform anytime during Q3 2022.
Those were better numbers than the 2.58 million concurrent viewers recorded in Q2 2022.
40. 6 in 10 esports viewers could be found on Twitch in 2022.
That was the most across platforms, beating YouTube Gaming (55%) and Facebook Gaming (33%) in the year.
41. Twitch’s active viewer count record for 2022 was over 6.355 million.
On June 5, 2022, 6,355,385 concurrent stream viewers were active by 03:06 am.
42. Twitch’s simultaneous streaming channel record in 2022 was created in February.
On February 11, there were 59,917 channels concurrently streaming live content.
Twitch User Safety Statistics
43. Twitch channel moderators covered 84.35% of the minutes watched by viewers in H1 2022.
For comparison, moderators were active on 86.82% of all watched minutes in H2 2021 and 87.78% in H1 2021.
44. Twitch deployed more AutoMods in H1 2022 than in any other half-year preceding it.
AutoMods regulated over 75% of minutes watched on the platform in H1 2022.
In contrast, the program was active on 74.28% of the minutes watched in H2 2021 and 73.28% in H1 2021.
45. Twitch proactively removed over 75.7 million chat messages in H1 2022.
Likewise, it manually removed over 21.3 million chat messages in the same period. This represented a deletion rate of about 3.2 per 1,000 chat messages generated in that timeframe.
46. Twitch’s automatic systems removed over 132.3 million messages in H1 2021 alone.
This was the highest number of removals between 2020 – 2022.
Likewise, more than 37.1 million messages were manually removed in that period. Overall, H1 2021 averaged 4.5 message deletions per 1,000 messages generated.
47. H1 2022 saw the second-least channel enforcement actions behind H1 2020.
Moderators applied 3.35 million channel bans to erring users in H1 2022, compared to 2.289 million similar actions in H1 2020.
48. Twitch channel moderators used timeouts in 3.27 million cases in H1 2022.
In comparison, moderators issued 3.239 million timeouts in H1 2020.
<a href="https://vpnalert.com/resources/twitch-statistics/" target="_blank" data-wpel-link="internal"><img src="https://vpnalert.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/twitch-moderators-timeouts-cases.png" alt="Twitch Channel Moderators Used Timeouts in 3.27 Million Cases" width="768" border="0" height="399.91854545455" loading="lazy" fetchpriority="low" srcset="https://vpnalert.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/twitch-moderators-timeouts-cases-768x400.png 768w, https://vpnalert.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/twitch-moderators-timeouts-cases-300x156.png 300w, https://vpnalert.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/twitch-moderators-timeouts-cases-1024x533.png 1024w, https://vpnalert.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/twitch-moderators-timeouts-cases.png 1375w" sizes="auto"></a>
49. Twitch experienced the least user reports per 1,000 hours of video content watched in H1 2022.
The first six months in 2022 averaged 0.64 user reports per one thousand video hours watched, down from 0.70 in H2 2021. The highest over the last five halves (ending in H1 2022) was in H1 2021, with 0.83 user reports per a thousand video hours watched.
50. Twitch kicked against hateful conduct, harassment, and sexual harassment with 182,655 enforcement actions.
This was in H1 2022 alone, marking an increase from the 171,203 enforcements handed out in H2 2021. However, H1 2021 saw the hugest spike in related enforcement actions (over 210,000), up from 61,000 in the last half.
51. Twitch enforcement actions against adult nudity, pornography, and sexual content have grown in the last five halves.
The volume stood at over 40,000 enforcement actions in these cases alone by the end of H1 2022, making it the largest over a five-halve period.
| Period | Enforcements |
|---|---|
| H1 2020 | 11,308 |
| H2 2020 | 16,086 |
| H1 2021 | 24,985 |
| H2 2021 | 32,615 |
| H1 2022 | 40,047 |
As of H1 2022, enforcement related to spam and other community guideline violations fell more than 83.4% from H2 2020. At its peak, such enforcement reached 987,239.
Twitch Statistics by the Hour
53. Twitch streamers watched 5.7 billion hours of live-streamed content in Q3 2022.
Generally, hours watched across all live game streaming platforms declined by 1.2% from Q2 – Q3 2022. However, Twitch’s Q3 cumulative watching hours were better than the 5.6 billion hours it amassed in Q2.
54. Twitch suffered a 1.7% decline in YoY Q3 hours watched.
Viewers watched 5.8 billion hours of content in Q3 2021, which slumped by 0.1 billion in Q3 2022.
At 78.6%, the platform enjoyed a 1.9% growth from its market share in Q2 2022.
56. Twitch streamers generated 210.4 billion content hours in Q3 2022.
That’s a 3% bump to the 204.2 billion hours broadcasted in Q2 2022.
57. There was a 5% YoY decrease in Twitch broadcasted hours as of Q3 2022.
In Q3 2021, users broadcasted over 222 million hours of live content on Twitch.
This slipped by almost 12 billion hours in Q3 2022.
58. League of Legends is the most-watched game on Twitch.
As of December 2022, League of Legends amassed 55.28 billion viewing hours across Twitch channels. Fortnite was second with 30.22 billion hours, while Grand Theft Auto V completed the top 3.
| Title | All-Time Viewing Hours |
|---|---|
| League of Legends | 55.28 billion |
| Fortnite | 30.22 billion |
| GTA V | 29.3 billion |
| CS:GO | 24.96 billion |
| DOTA 2 | 21.69 billion |
59. UK adults averaged an hour and 39 minutes on Twitch in September 2021.
While its UK female audience was in the minority (30%), they spent 2 hours and 8 minutes monthly on the platform.
60. In Q1 2022, live gaming streamers watched 5 billion more hours of Twitch content than YouTube Gaming.
Twitch recorded 6.13 billion hours of watched gaming streams in the period, while YouTube TV had 1.13 billion hours watched instead.
61. Top Twitch streamers went live for over 8 hours in 2021.
From a random sample of Twitch streaming accounts, the top performers averaged 22 hours a week of streaming time. That worked into 8.2 hours per “working” day, and the top 15 channels recorded a 30,000+ viewership average at any given time.
62. Twitch’s streaming audience hours grew by 2% in June 2022.
Despite this, the overall mobile game streaming industry saw a 35% decline in the month.
Twitch Revenue & Financials Statistics
63. Twitch made $39.14 million via global in-app purchases in Q3 2022 alone.
This is across Twitch’s global market, as it is available everywhere except China.
64. Twitch’s primary revenue source is user subscriptions.
As of Q1 2022, YouTube Gaming used advertisements to generate revenue.
65. Content creators on Twitch split revenue in half with the platform.
In contrast, YouTube Gaming gives creators 70% of the advertising revenue generated via their content.
66. Twitch’s basic subscriptions started at $4.99 per user per month in 2022.
Twitch users can also purchase Bits, a Twitch-based currency, to donate to their favorite streamers.
67. One bit on Twitch is worth one cent in real-world money.
While Twitch splits subscription revenue with partners, partners and affiliates can keep 100% of the bits donated to them by viewers.
68. Twitch partners got ¾ of the user subscription revenue as of Q1 2022.
From June 2023, Twitch plans to reduce the partner share from 75% to 70% of the subscription revenue.
69. Twitch partners will only get 70% of subscription revenue on the first $100,000 earnings.
Starting from June 2023, Twitch will also cut the partner share to 50% of the revenue after the first $100,000.
<a href="https://vpnalert.com/resources/twitch-statistics/" target="_blank" data-wpel-link="internal"><img src="https://vpnalert.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/twitch-partners-earnings.png" alt="Earnings of Twitch Partners" width="768" border="0" height="399.91854545455" loading="lazy" fetchpriority="low" srcset="https://vpnalert.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/twitch-partners-earnings-768x400.png 768w, https://vpnalert.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/twitch-partners-earnings-300x156.png 300w, https://vpnalert.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/twitch-partners-earnings-1024x533.png 1024w, https://vpnalert.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/twitch-partners-earnings.png 1375w" sizes="auto"></a>
70. Streamers get 5% of game sale revenue during a live stream.
Even so, the top Twitch creators earned 80% of their income from subscriptions, 4% from donations, and the rest (16%) via advertisements in 2021.
71. Only 3 accounts earned almost $25 million from Twitch between 2019 and 2021.
A data breach showed that CriticalRole (over $9.6 million), xQc (over $8.45 million), and summit1g (more than $5.8 million) earned almost half of what the top 10 streamers in that period pulled in.
This data only included the traditional Twitch earning sources (ads, donations, and subscription share), leaving out any sponsorship earnings and possible incentive payments to stream exclusively on Twitch.
On the other hand, YouTube was paying its streamers about $3 to $5 per 1,000 views.
73. Twitch streamers earned over $1 billion in revenue in 2022.
Twitch also lowered its minimum payout from $100 to $50 for 95% of its streamers who monetized their content.
74. Over 300,000 Twitch streamers got their first payout in 2022.
After Twitch’s new $50 minimum payout threshold, nearly 40% of streamers started cashing out monthly.
75. At the start of 2022, Twitch made over $1 billion (all-time) in mobile app revenue.
This represented global earnings across its Android and iOS apps.
76. 76% of esports companies used Twitch in 2022.
Only 4 in 10 esports companies could be found on YouTube Gaming in the same period.
77. Over half of gamers in 2021 believed it was possible to make a living from Twitch.
49.6% of gamers were against this idea, while 50.4% were confident about living off streaming on the platform.
Numbers That Make You Twitch
This social live video streaming platform generated over $1 billion in mobile app revenue alone and contributed to the shutting down of Facebook Gaming.
Likewise, it paid out over $1 billion to streamers in 2022 and uses its own currency, called Bits.
Yes, those numbers will make you Twitch.
And if over 50% of gamers believe you can make a living from Twitch, you should check out these best VPNs to stream safely on Twitch. After all, the last thing you want is to get doxed, swatted, or DDoS-ed in the middle of a stream.
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