The streaming industry has shown continuous growth over the last year, setting new records each quarter. Twitch has led the pack with three straight quarters of record-breaking performance for hours watched and streamed.
The total number of hours watched across all streaming platforms increased by 2.5 percent from 8.77 billion hours in Q1 to 8.99 billion hours in Q2 2021, according to the latest Streamlabs and Stream Hatchet industry report. During that time, viewers spent more than three billion hours per month watching live content, up 16 percent from the 2.5 billion hours watched during the same period in 2020.
Per platform, Twitch reached another all-time high for the third quarter in a row with 6.51 billion hours watched, up from 6.337 billion hours in the previous quarter. Viewership on the biggest streaming platform has increased 27 percent year-over-year.
Q2 saw both the total number of hours and unique channels streaming drop by an average of 8.5 percent, though both are still up double-digit percentages from the same time frame in 2020.
YouTube Gaming’s numbers returned to what they were in Q1 2020, dropping four percent from 1.3 million hours watched to 1.2 million. Similarly, the number of hours streamed on YouTube Gaming decreased 7.9 percent from 9.68 million in Q1 to 8.92 million in Q2 2021.
The number of unique channels and average concurrent viewership on YouTube Gaming also decreased by 10.2 percent and 5.5 percent respectively from Q1 to Q2.
Meanwhile, Facebook Gaming carried its Q1 momentum into Q2, jumping from hitting one billion hours watched for the first time in a quarter to 1.1 billion hours watched in Q2, a 12-percent increase. Viewership is also up 42.7 percent compared to the same time in 2020.
Facebook Gaming saw its total hours watched and average concurrent viewership rise as well, while the number of unique channels streaming on the platform dipped massively, going from 1.5 million to just over 840,000 in Q2.
During Q2, Grand Theft Auto V was the biggest single title across all platforms, reaching 866 million hours watched, 330 million more than Q1. Just Chatting also saw an increase from 754 million hours watched to 822 million.
And for esports, Riot Games dominated with the League of Legends MSI 2021 pulling in just under 60 million hours watched, followed by VALORANT Masters at 23.9 million and the WePlay Esports Dota 2 AniMajor at 22.7 million.
Published: Jul 27, 2021 10:45 am