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Twitch Is On Top Of The Streaming World Again In 2020
According to a report from Streamlabs and Stream Hatchet, popular streaming platform Twitch hit all-time record highs in some of the most important categories in the industry - including concurrent viewership. Twitch has found its share of the streaming market shrinking by the day as companies like Mixer, Facebook Gaming, and YouTube Gaming all vie for a piece of an industry that's become increasingly lucrative for both its stars and sponsors.
Last summer, Tyler "Ninja" Blevins kicked off the competition to secure the biggest portion of the streaming market with his dramatic move to Microsoft's Mixer. That spurred other Twitch megastars to review their options, and many of them decided - or were enticed - to move to other platforms exclusively, whether it be more stars heading to Mixer or others looking to be the centerpiece of brands like Facebook and YouTube Gaming. Through it all, however, Twitch has quietly been rebuilding its empire by securing some of the remaining big names and furthering its Amazon Prime offerings to help incentivize patrons to remain with the long-time stalwart of the industry.
In a report from Streamlabs and Stream Hatchet, two industry expert companies that have businesses directly related to the streaming process, it was revealed that Twitch has reached all-time highs in three key categories: hours watched, hours streamed, and average concurrent viewers. Those categories are vitally important to the success of a streaming platform and are concrete evidence that Twitch's Q1 2020 growth was big. Here are two graphs showing the increase, provided by the report:
The second biggest takeaway is likely that Twitch was the only company that experienced any sort of regression in hours watched over the past few months - indicating that the company did, as some believed it would, begin to experience a decline due to the amount of competition it was facing. However, Twitch also rebounded and experienced a sharp increase in hours watched, so much so that it's clearly growing at a faster rate than other competitors. Other interesting notes include the fact that Mixer actually lost concurrent viewership this quarter, a stark contrast to spikes for both Twitch and YouTube Gaming.
The rest of the report is fascinating as well (those interested can view it when it's published tomorrow), but it appears that Twitch is much healthier than many critics believed. Of course, these numbers aren't infallible - the world is in the midst of a pandemic that is forcing people indoors, meaning streaming as a whole is going to become more popular now. With that said, though, Twitch's growth - especially in hours watched - is impressive, and with concurrent viewership figures to back it up, the fight for streaming supremacy is still very far from over, especially with YouTube Gaming and Facebook Gaming exploding in 2020 as well.
