We’ve Already Spent 3 Billion Hours Binging Twitch in 2020
As the global crisis shows no sign of abating, we're are likely to see Twitch's numbers rise - or at the very least, stabilize around these record levels - in the months ahead. | Source: Twitch
- Twitch had its best quarter to date in Q1 2020.
- The platform hit all-time records with over 3 billion hours watched and over 121 million hours streamed.
- The surge in popularity is linked to the vast number of people confined to their homes by coronavirus lockdown measures.
Twitch is more popular than ever, according to the latest quarterly findings from streaming software company Steamlabs .
The Amazon-owned streaming platform has seemingly benefited from the impact of the coronavirus pandemic, mimicking the uptick in the popularity of video games and services like Steam.
Given the sweeping lockdown measures affecting numerous countries across the globe, it makes sense that more people are spending time watching streamers.
Coronavirus Delivers Twitch a Record Quarter
According to the Streamlabs report, Twitch has had its best quarter ever in Q1 2020. The platform hit an all-time high for hours streamed, hours watched, and average concurrent viewers.
Total hours watched in Q1 shot up 17% compared to the previous quarter, surging past the 3 billion mark for a total of 3,113,069, 793 hours.
Total hours streamed on Twitch jumped to nearly 121.5 million hours, a 20% increase over Q4 2019.
The average concurrent viewership figure saw a similar increase of 19.5%. An average of 1,441,698 viewers were watching streams on the platform at any given moment from January to the end of March 2020.
Interestingly, the number of unique channels also rose on Twitch by 33.3% to 6,100,779. The Q1 2020 channel number isn’t an all-time high, but it’s an increase of more than 1.5 million from the previous quarter. This suggests people were flocking to both sides of the camera.
Twitch Still Leads the Pack by a Considerable Margin
When compared to the other major streaming platforms – YouTube Gaming Live, Facebook, and Mixer – Twitch remains ahead by a large margin.
Among these platforms, Twitch snapped up:
- 65% of the total hours watched
- 72% of hours streamed
- 55% of total channels
That said, YouTube Gaming Live, Facebook, and Mixer all experienced quarterly growth as well.
As for what viewers watched most, the top eSports event fell to Games Done Quick, with over 22 million hours watched. Trailing slightly behind was the League of Legends European Championship, which remained popular despite suspending games for multiple weeks in March.
As the global crisis shows no sign of abating, we’re are likely to see Twitch’s numbers rise – or at the very least, stabilize around these record levels – in the months ahead.
