Twitch Revenue and Usage Statistics (2023)

What is Twitch?

Twitch is a livestreaming platform that hosts content ranging from gaming to creative categories such as music, art, food & drink, outdoor, or just Chat. If we look at who’s doing what on Twitch right now, we’ll see broadcasters playing games, artists who play art, music makers, cookers, developers of new games and software, people who take their viewers on a real-life journey, and other things. 

Founded by Justin Kan in 2011 as a spin off of Justin.tv, the platform has attracted the attention of millions of people around the world. Video game streaming is the most fundamental pillar of the platform. Twitch, which reached 45 million unique visitors in October 2013, reached 1.5 million broadcasters when the calendars showed 2015 and 2.2 million broadcasters in 2018.

Key Twitch Stats

• In 2022, 21 billion hours watched and 788 million hours streamed. Twitch recorded 48 billion chat messages sent in 2022.
• In 2022, Twitch acquired 11 million new streamers. (Twitch)
• The top 1% of Twitch streamers made over half of all money paid out in 2021, according to a Wall Street Journal analysis of data made public in a high-profile leak. The WSJ analysis shows the best-paid streamer on Twitch made more than $5 million this year. Last year’s highest-earning account, a group of “Dungeons & Dragons” players, made close to $4 million in 2021. 
• Twitch generated 22 million downloads in the first quarter of 2021, up 62% as compared to the first quarter of 2020 when it hit 13.6 million downloads. The U.S. was Twitch’s largest market where it generated 17.6 million installs in 2020 and 5 million new installs in the first quarter of 2021.
• From March 2020 to March 2021, Twitch’s monthly active users increased by 69 per cent.

Twitch Streamer Stats

• As of October 2022, Twitch had  7.13 million active streamers, down from a peak of 9.89 million in January 2021.
• In 2022, 7.6 million unique creators streaming each month on Twitch.

• Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) went live on Twitch to stream Among Us on 20 October 2020 and her stream peaked at 435,000 viewers, making it one of the biggest streams ever on Twitch. (Mobile Marketing Reads)

Twitch Viewer Stats

• As of December 2022, the most popular game of all time on Twitch was League of Legends, with more than 55.28 billion all time views worldwide.

• Twitch viewers watched 22.4 billion hours of content in 2022, a 6% decline from 2021.

• Twitch has over 30 million daily visitors as of January 2021.
• In 2020, more than 1 trillion minutes watched on Twitch, up 69% as compared to 2019. 
• In December 2020, over 1,87 billion hours watched on Twitch. (TwitchTracker)
• In March 2020, Twitch set an all-time record of 22.7 million peak daily active users. (Statista)

Twitch Channel Stats

• In January 2023, the number of average concurrent channels was 92.7K  (TwitchTracker)

• In May 2023, the most popular streaming channel on Twitch in terms of hours watched was BLASTPremier – the channel had a combined 13.5 million hours watched in the preceding 30 days. (Statista)

Twitch Revenue Statistics

• Twitch revenue for the full year 2022 was around $2.8 billion. In Q4 2022, Twitch apps, which are available on the App Store and Google Play, generated approximately $33.67 million through in-app purchase revenues globally. 

• As of January 2022, consumer spending on Twitch’s mobile apps has exceeded $1 billion across app stores.
• In the first quarter of 2021, Twitch generated approximately 103.65 million U.S. dollars through in-app purchase revenues across Google Play and the App Store worldwide. (Statista)
• Amazon-owned Twitch generated $1.54 billion in revenue in 2019 compared to YouTube Gaming’s $1.46 billion according to a report by SuperData. 

Twitch Ad Revenue

• According to The Information, Twitch ad revenue for 2018 was $230 million. In 2019, the platform was on track to generate an average of ad revenue of $300 million. The company goal for 2020 was between $500 million and $600 million. 
• In May, the number of Twitch’s daily downloads on the app stores in the US increased from 20.000 to 60.000. In line with the increasing number of downloads, there has been a huge increase in revenue too. It averaged around $70.000 before COVID-19 lockdowns. In May, Twitch earned $400.000 from the app stores in the United States in a single day. (Mobile Marketing Reads)