Twitch Stats and Demographics for 2024: The Most Influential Streaming Platform for Gamers

Nikolina Cveticanin

Updated: February 6, 2024

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Twitch is the most popular gaming streaming platform, showing no signs of slowing down. Twitch stats and analytics show that it controls a significant portion of the market and is expected to grow even more.

This report is worth reading if you want to learn more about Twitch streamers and their audience. We looked at some of the key Twitch viewership statistics, demographics, and some of the most influential streamers on the platform.

So whether you’re just starting in streaming or looking for ways to boost your viewership numbers, this report has something for you!

Standout Twitch Statistics

• Over 62 million hours of streams are watched daily on Twitch.
• Twitch users watched 1.5 trillion hours of streams in 2021. 
• Around 8.5 million content creators chose Twitch as their preferred streaming platform monthly in 2021.
• There are around 51,500 active Twitch Partners.
• Twitch accounted for 76% of streamed gaming content in Q1 2022.
• Amazon bought Twitch for $970 million.
• Ninja has the most followed channel, with 18 million users.
• The most popular category on the platform is Just Chatting, with 3.1 billion hours watched in 2021.
• In Q2 2022, 99% of top streamers were male.
• The most popular games on the platform are Grand Theft Auto V, League of Legends, Valorant, Minecraft, Apex Legends, and Dota 2.

Twitch Streaming Stats

When you stream, you broadcast live video content to the internet. You can stream just about anything, from makeup tutorials to gaming videos, and the stream stats for Twitch show it’s the number one platform for gaming content.

When it comes to streaming video games, Twitch has become the go-to platform. Twitch is a live-streaming platform that was initially designed for gamers. But, these days, it’s used by all content creators, from music artists to chefs.

Twitch has steadily increased viewership since its early days as Justin.tv. Still, nothing compares to the growth in viewer and streamer numbers seen since the start of 2020.

1. In August 2022, Twitch had more than 2.5 million viewers on a seven-day average.

(TwitchTracker)

Twitch’s viewership had increased significantly, with the highest peak viewership recorded in June 2022, when more than 6.6 million users were registered on the platform.

2. In 2022, there were more than 94,445 average concurrent Twitch channels.

(TwitchTracker)

Twitch streamer stats show a significant growth in the number of content creators on the platform. The number more than doubled from over 45,000 on average in December 2019 to more than 100,000 in May 2020.

3. 2020 was the year with the highest average number of concurrent channels at 106,000.

(TwitchTracker)

So far, in 2022, Twitch has yet to report a rise in the number of creators on the platform.

4. There were 51,500 Twitch Partners in 2021.

(Statista)

The Twitch partnership program was launched in 2011, allowing streamers to increase their monetization options through subscriptions, receiving Bits, and earning a share of the revenue from ads.

Twitch Metrics and Viewership

How much time do viewers spend watching broadcasts? These are some of the most interesting Twitch statistics and the most relevant for potential advertisers on the platform.

5. More than 62 million hours of Twitch streams are watched daily by the gaming community.

(TwitchTracker)

These numbers reflect how many hours of live video are watched. Videos on demand (VODs) or short clips do not count towards this statistic. VODs are stored for 60 days for Twitch Partners, Turbo, and Prime users, while the rest are saved for up to 14 days.

6. A record number of monthly hours watched was in May 2021 – 2.3 billion.

(TwitchTracker)

Twitch stream stats show the monthly watch time consistently rising year-over-year. In 2019, the number of hours watched per month didn’t surpass one billion.

However, after February 2020, people spent much more time in their homes due to COVID-19, which significantly helped the platform grow—after April 2020, monthly hours watched stayed within 1.5 billion.

7. More than 2 million hours of video are streamed daily.

(TwitchTracker)

Twitch statistics for the longest broadcast time were in January 2021, when over 88.6 million hours of video content were streamed on the platform. Like Twitch viewership, broadcasting has surged after February 2020, nearly doubling from 37.5 million to 74.7 million hours in three months.

8. In 2021, 1.5 trillion minutes of streams were watched. 

(TwitchTracker)

This is a 31% increase from 2020 with 1.1 trillion minutes, which was already a significant increase of 69% compared to 2019.

9. 2021 had the highest number of unique creators at 8.5 million monthly. 

(TwitchTracker) 

This was an increase of 23% compared to 2020, which was already a successful year with 6.9 million unique streamers monthly, a 90% surge compared to 2019.

10. The number of Twitch partners jumped 45% in 2020 to 51,480.

(TwitchTracker)

The Twitch data reflected the modest beginning of the partnership program in 2012 when only 3,400 Twitch broadcasters were part of it.

11. In Q1 2022, Twitch accounted for 76% of hours watched between live streaming platforms, with more than 6.1 billion hours.

(Streamlabs)

With 1.1 billion and 803 million hours watched, respectively, YouTube Gaming Live (14%) and Facebook Gaming (10%) barely accounted for a quarter of the total streamed content viewership.

12. Twitch streamed 91.5% of the video content in Q1 2022.

(Streamlabs)

With more than 229 million hours of streams, Twitch is far ahead of YouTube Gaming Live (3.5%) and Facebook Gaming (5%) for how many channels and content creators contribute to the platform.

Twitch Facts and History

Twitch tremendously influence the game industry through its global platform gathering content creators and an impressive user base. It started with humble beginnings, though, and even couldn’t handle its growing success at one point.

13. Twitch was created in June 2011 as a spin-off of Justin.tv dedicated solely to gaming.

(The Verge)

Justin.tv, initially launched by Justin Kan, Emmett Shear, Michael Seibel, and Kyle Vogt in 2007, had a gaming section that quickly grew in popularity, leading to the creation of Twitch.tv.

14. The company is headquartered in San Francisco, California. 

(Business Insider)

Since June 2013, when it had 80 employees, Twitch has grown to a company with 700 employees supporting a global community of millions.

15. Twitch has raised over $42 million in investment funding. 

(Disruptive Asia)

Twitch’s growth was made possible by three rounds of funding from venture capital investments added to the funds initially received for Justin.tv. Firms such as Draper Associates, Thrive Capital, and Bessemer Venture Partners brought in significant capital, which helped the company to become profitable in 2013.

16. Google ,through its subsidiary YouTube, was interested in acquiring Twitch before Amazon. 

(Variety, VentureBeat)

Google gave up on the $1 billion deal because of potential antitrust concerns, leaving room for Amazon to acquire Twitch for an all-cash sale of $970 million.

17. Twitch Prime was first announced in September 2016. 

(The Verge)

Another contributing factor to Twitch earnings was the introduction of Twitch Prime to the platform. It was introduced as a feature available to all Amazon Prime subscribers. It unlocked ad-free streams, game discounts, and in-game items for games included in the program.

18. Twitch Prime was rebranded to Prime Gaming in 2020.

(Business Insider)

Prime Gaming expanded the offer to Twitch users by including a Twitch channel subscription, member access to game content, exclusive emoticons, additional chat color options, prime badges, and extended access to broadcast storage. 

19. Ad-free access to streams with Prime was discontinued in August 2018. 

(Business Insider)

Twitch’s revenue relies on advertisers; therefore, ad-free streaming is now only limited to Twitch Turbo subscribers, an additional subscription in addition to Amazon Prime.

Twitch Streamer Statistics

Twitch wouldn’t be there if it weren’t for its streamers. The most popular ones have millions of followers and have demonstrated that playing games can be a legitimate and profitable profession.

In recent years, streaming has become a popular way to make a living, and platforms like Twitch have made it easier than ever to get started. However, beginning a stream is just the first step. If you want to be successful, you need to work hard to build a following and learn from the examples of experienced streamers.

One thing that helps top streamers stand out is consistency. Twitch charts reflect that streaming regularly is essential for growing your audience, revenue, and sponsorship deals. 

20. Richard Tyler Blevins, also known as Ninja, has a channel with the highest number of followers on Twitch, at more than 18 million.

(Fortune, Statista)

Ninja became incredibly popular when he started streaming Fortnite, a battle royale game from the Epic Games studio. Ninja held a record in 2018 for most concurrent viewers at more than 600,000. His channel was watched for 351 million hours in total, or for more than 40,000 years.

As of 2023, the streamer has about 18.5 million followers.

21. Twitch sub stats show that the channel with the most subscriptions belongs to Kai Cenat. 

(TwitchTracker, NPR)

As of 2023, KAICENAT has over 73,048 subscribers, including paid, Prime, and gifted subscriptions. Cenat began a month-long substation on January 31, 2023. He attained 306,621 subscribers at his peak, making him the most subscribed Twitch streamer on February 28 of the same year.

22. The channel with the most views is Fextralife, with over 2.1 billion views. 

(TwitchTracker)

Besides Fextralife’s impressive Twitch viewership stats, it has over 1.3 million followers and 194 million hours watched. The channel is a collaboration between multiple creators, a hub for news, guides, reviews, and a focus on role-playing games.

23. Ibai Llanos is a Twitch streamer that broke all records for the highest number of concurrent viewers, with 3.3 million people watching his stream in 2020.

(IGN, The Verge)

Ibai’s La Velada del Año II (The Evening of the Year 2) event featured boxing matches between content creators from YouTube, Twitch, and other creative fields. The Twitch channel has stats that are also impressive, with more than 4,400 hours streamed and 260 million hours watched.

24. The previous record with 2.4 million concurrent viewers was held in 2021 by TheGrefg. 

(IGN) 

David Cánovas Martínez (TheGrefg) is a Fortnite streamer. The reveal of a Fortnite skin based on him for the popular battle royale drew significant attention.

25. Riot Games has the most followed esports channel, with 6.1 million followers.

(Esports Charts)

The channel also has the highest total views at over 1.3 billion. It’s closely followed by ESL_CSGO, revolving around the popular Valve game and Fortnite.

Twitch Profits

While Twitch generates impressive viewership numbers, streamer earnings and profits were recently made public. After a severe data breach, the earnings of top Twitch streamers were revealed from 100 GB of data posted online.

Furthermore, the streaming platform has seen increased users on its mobile application, and Twitch numbers continue to climb.

26. The biggest earner on Twitch from August 2019 to October 2021 was CriticalRole, with over $9.6 million.

(Dot Esports)

CriticalRole is a Twitch channel where professional voice actors play Dungeons and Dragons, a popular tabletop roleplaying game.

27. The top 25 channels earned over $2 million each in the two years covered by the leaked data. 

(Dot Esports)

Streamer statistics show some impressive earnings made by Twitch content creators. Below is the list of the top 15 earners on the platform for the 2019/21 period.

1.	CriticalRole	$9.6 million
2.	xQcOW	$8.4 million
3.	Summit1g	$5.8 million
4.	Tfue	$5.3 million
5.	NICKMERCS	$5.1 million
6.	ludwig	$3.3 million
7.	TimTheTatman	$3.3 million
8.	Altoar	$3 million
9.	Auronplay	$3 million
10	LIRIK	$3 million
11.	DrDisrespect	$2.9 million
12.	Gaules	$2.8 million
13.	HasanAbi	$2.8 million
14.	Asmongold	$2.5 million
15.	Loltyler1	$2.5 million

There are three monthly channel subscriptions available to Twitch viewers, including:

• $5 for Tier 1
• $10 for Tier 2
• $25 for Tier 3

*(rounded values)

28. Twitch earns 50% from each subscription. 

(Bloomberg)

While the platform previously granted top streamers 70% of the revenue, Twitch plans to implement a new revenue-sharing system with streamers. The system is said to have different tiers of revenue splitting depending on yet-to-be-revealed metrics.

29. Depending on their location, Twitch Partners earn between $3.5 and $5 for every 1,000 ad impressions.

(Bloomberg)

Twitch is constantly experimenting with different ways of monetizing ads. In 2022, the platform stated that creators with at least 40 hours of stream time per month would receive $100 for running two minutes of ads per hour.

Twitch streaming statistics still show that ads remain controversial because they interrupt live broadcasts. Advertisement blocks can inevitably irritate the audience, especially if you miss a crucial gameplay moment. Therefore, some streamers see ads harming their metrics, while others see them as necessary for revenue.

30. In Q1 2022, Twitch earned $65.1 million through in-app purchases made worldwide. 

(Business of Apps)

The most profitable year for in-app purchases was 2021

• Q1 $101.3 million 
• Q2 $100.7 million 
• Q3 $94.2 million
• Q4 $75.4 million

Since Q4 2017, purchases through the app have earned almost $800 million.

31. Twitch had the single most considerable revenue, of around $2 billion in 2020, of all gaming video content platforms.

(Loadout)

Twitch stats show the platform had a 22% share of the total market revenue, worth $9.3 billion. YouTube was right behind with 18% of the revenue.

32. Revenue sources for Twitch streamers are donations, ads, subscriptions, and sponsorship.

(Streamlabs)

Streamer revenue from sources other than subscriptions is personal knowledge. The other sources include Bits (donations) from users, ads, and sponsored deals.

According to Twitch streamer Disguised Toast, he received around $10,000 per month without running other ads besides those when he joined the stream. With 4,000 subs, he received $14,000 per month. Sponsorships are the most profitable as he received $5,000 per each 30-second Youtube video promotion or up to $10,000 for live performances.

Twitch Viewer Demographics and User Engagement

Who exactly is watching Twitch? How many social media users are aware of the streaming platform? Some interesting information regarding the demographic primarily interested in the platform’s content.

33. English is the primary language on the platform, with 56.4%. 

(TwitchTracker)

The other most common languages are Spanish (12.6%), German (6.2%), Portuguese (6.1%), French (5.6%), and Russian (5.1%).

34. Among the top five channels with the most followers are three Spanish-speaking ones.

(SullyGnome)

Twitch users autoplay, Rubius, and Ibai have 13.6 million, 12.6 million, and 11.5 million followers, respectively.

35. Globally, in July 2022, 79.8% of Twitch users were male, while 20.2% were female. 

(Statista)

Twitch user stats are better for the US, where 33% of all users are female. The platform remains one-sided, even though female gamers comprise a significant portion of the content creators. 

36. In 2022, the most represented age group on Twitch was users between the ages of 25 and 34, at 49.7%.

(Statista)

However, 16 to 24-year-olds are also very active on Twitch (22.3%), as are people aged between 35 and 44 (17.5%). A surprising number of 45 to 54-year-olds are also active on Twitch (7.4%). The viewership numbers are expectedly low for people older than 55, with 3.2%.

37. In the US, 30% of Twitch viewers are high school graduates.

(Statista)

Twitch demographics show that most users have some higher education, as 29% hold a bachelor’s degree, 18% have a master’s degree, and 5% have a doctoral degree or equivalent. Around 12% of users have attended a vocational or technical school, while 5% have some high school education.

38. There are 33.2 million Twitch users in the US. 

(Statista)

According to estimates, this number will rise to 36.7 million by 2025 since the audience for esports and, by extension, Twitch will lead to an increase in users on the platform.

39. The United States accounts for most Twitch desktop traffic, with 21.55%.

(Statista)

While the US remains the central portion of the Twitch viewer count, other countries such as Germany (6.9%), South Korea (4.9%), Russia (4.1%), and Canada (4%) are among the top five countries where Twitch is popular.

40. Twitch introduced multiple new tags for categorizing streams in May 2021, including those related to disabilities, gender, and sexual identity.

(Twitch)

Twitch partnered with organizations such as the Trevor Project, GLAAD, SpecialEffect, AbleGamers, and other groups that support marginalized communities.

41. Twitch stream stats show that 99% of the top 100 streamers in Q2 2022 were male. 

(Game Rant)

The only female among the top streamers was Amouranth, in the 56th spot. Users watched her streams for more than 8 million hours in that period. Among the top 10 female streamers, three out of 10 are VTubers, meaning they use virtually generated avatars instead of showing themselves in person.

42. 87.4% of desktop users visit Twitch directly.

(Statista)

6.5% of traffic results from social media, 4.5% from search, and 1.2% from referrals. The most visits from social media that point users to Twitch come from YouTube (47.4%), Twitter (26.7%), and Reddit (15.3%).

43. Twitch had 1.2 billion visits in May 2022. 

(Statista) 

Globally the website was in 38th place in July, while in the US, it is in 56th spot.

Twitch Game Stats

Live streaming of video games has become increasingly popular, particularly on Twitch, which paved the way for live streaming as a profession. When a user live streams a game on Twitch, they broadcast their gameplay in real-time to other users who can tune in and watch.

Live streaming offers a unique perspective on video gaming compared to traditional media like television or pre-recorded videos. It allows viewers to get a front-row seat to all the action and receive commentary from the players as they experience it.

For many fans, this makes for a more engaging and exciting experience by interacting directly with the player and other viewers in the chatroom. Increasing Twitch subscribers statistics also demonstrate the growing popularity of the format.

Which game is popular and successful on Twitch changes depending on current trends and the popularity of streamers. However, one particular category is more popular than any game on the platform.

44. In 2021, Just Chatting was the most popular category by hours watched. 

(Statista, Streamlabs)

Twitch users watched around 3.1 billion hours in 2021 in the Just Chatting category. Some popular channels start their streams by chatting with their audience before switching to a game.

45. The most popular games in 2022 are Grand Theft Auto V, League of Legends, Valorant, Minecraft, Apex Legends, and Dota 2.

(Forbes)

In the last 30 days, Grand Theft Auto V and League of Legends had more than 125 million hours watched each, with Grand Theft Auto V slightly ahead. Grand Theft Auto V had nearly half a million peak viewers, while League of Legends reported more than 780,000. Games like Minecraft, with over 800,000 peak viewers, and Valorant, with over 680,000, accomplished this with even fewer hours of streaming content.

46. Twitch games and stats show that Riot Games is the most popular publisher in Q1 2022. 

(Streamlabs)

Riot Games publish popular titles like Valorant and League of Legends, some of the most popular competitive esports on the platform. With over 912 million hours watched, Riot Games takes first place, followed by Rockstar Games (556 million hours) and Take-Two Interactive (538 million hours).

Conclusion

Streamers are becoming more prevalent and more well-known as online personalities. Many people find Twitch broadcasting a great way to interact with friends and viewers about their shared interest in gaming or other creative pursuits. Additionally, it offers a chance to engage and entertain audiences in exchange for payment.