Twitch, Facebook Gaming Set New Records, YouTube Gaming Sees Decrease in Q2 2021

Amazon’s Twitch streaming platform and Facebook Gaming have continued to ride the boom of the live-streaming industry that went to astronomical heights in 2020, setting new records during Q2 of 2021.

According to Streamlabs and Stream Hatchet’s latest report, 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, with viewers spending more than 3 billion hours per month watching live content.

Notes

• 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
• Viewers spent 3 billion hours per month watching live streaming content, up 16% from 2.544 billion hours this time last year in Q2 2020
• Twitch breaks viewership records for the third quarter in a row
• Facebook Gaming triples the number of hours streamed in a year
• Viewership growth rates for Twitch and Facebook Gaming slowing down compared to previous quarters.
• YouTube Gaming viewership return to pre-covid levels
• Grand Theft Auto 5 is the most-watched game across all live streaming platforms
• Twitch viewership has reached an all-time high for the third quarter in a row, with 6.51 billion hours watched in the second quarter, up from 6.337 billion hours in the previous quarter.
• Twitch viewership has increased by 27% year on year, from 5.118 billion hours watched in Q2 2020 to 6.337 billion hours in Q2 2021.
• The total number of hours streamed on Twitch decreased by 8.2 percent in the second quarter to 243 million, compared to the previous quarter’s 264.9 million.
• The total hours of content streamed to Twitch increased by 19% compared to this time last year (203.9 million vs. 243 million)
• The number of unique twitch channels streaming to Twitch decreased by 8.8% in Q2, falling from 12.5 million in Q1 to 11.4 million in Q2.
• The number of unique channels increased by 10.7 percent year on year, from 10.3 million to 11.4 million.
• Viewership on YouTube Gaming decreased by 4% in Q2 to 1.203 million hours watched, down from 1.373 million hours watched in Q1.
• After reaching a record 1.5 million unique facebook gaming channels streaming to Facebook Gaming last quarter, that number has since decreased 45% to 840 thousand.