Twitch Continues To See Record Traffic, With New Installs Up 62% YOY (Report)

Twitch’s 2020 traffic boost isn’t tapering.

Like many video and social media platforms, the livestreaming service saw a major surge in usage after coronavirus lockdowns kicked in. It closed 2020 with record numbers: a total of 17 billion hours watched over the course of the year (up 83% from the 9 billion watched in 2020).

And, according to a new report from analytics firm Sensor Tower, the surge is still…well, surging. In the first quarter of 2021, Twitch’s mobile apps were installed 22 million times–62% more than its 13.6 million installs in Q1 2020.

This figure is especially notable because across the whole of 2019, Twitch was installed just (comparatively “just,” to be clear) 34.5 million times. Across 2020, it was installed 80.6 million times, per the report.

Many of these installs are coming from the U.S. and India. The States continue to be Twitch’s largest market, Sensor Tower says. The platform saw 17.6 million stateside installs in 2020 (up 91% from 2019), and in the first quarter of 2021, has hit 5 million U.S.-based downloads, up 61% from around 3 million in Q1 2020.

India is currently Twitch’s largest area of growth. Indian users installed Twitch 2.2 million times in 2020, up 588% from 320,000 in 2019. In Q1 2021, India has hit 280,000 installs, up 146% from 114,000 in Q1 2020.

A decent portion of these installs are resulting in regular users, too. Sensor Tower doesn’t disclose exact user numbers, but says Twitch’s monthly active user count is up 69% from March 2020.