For years, the Logitech-owned creator dashboard Streamlabs and its data partner Stream Hatchet have compiled quarterly progress reports for the streaming industry. The report for the third quarter of 2024 shows a status quo that may surprise some observers. Despite noticeable upticks for platforms like Kick and AfreecaTV, Amazon-owned Twitch is still the undisputed leader among streamers, accounting for more than 82% of all streaming hours during Q3.
Twitch’s challengers are coming, but they’re not serious threats yet
Kick, a venture backed by the founders of gambling hub Stake.com, made waves when it debuted late in 2022. Streamers were boasting about the thousands of dollars they had made on Kick over a short period of time, and the platform wooed major stars like xQc and Amouranth with expensive, exclusive contracts.
Some of that momentum is still going strong. The Streamlabs report showed that Kick’s total watch time has doubled year-over-year, reaching 533.9 million total hours in Q3 2024. One driver of that growth is sheer volume; the total number of streaming hours on Kick approached eight million during Q3 2024 after hovering around six million a year ago. It’s clear that Kick’s platform-wide investments, such as its Incentive Program, are bringing some breadth to its community.
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Still, those numbers pale in comparison to Twitch. The reigning champion of live streaming had 5.14 billion hours of watch time and 212 million total hours streamed in Q3 2024. YouTube Gaming came in a distant second with 1.94 billion hours of watch time and 14.5 million total hours streamed.
The number of unique channels on Kick appears to have plateaued after exceeding 500,000 during Q2 2023. That number dropped below 400,000 in the latest Streamlabs report (which is only 22 times less than Twitch’s 9.16 million unique streamers during the same timeframe). One potential reason for the dip could be the declining popularity of exclusive streamer contracts, which was one of the primary tactics Kick used to attract high-level talent. Cultural issues could be contributing to Kick’s streamer exodus as well.
Twitch is the home of the streaming industry’s “long tail”
The Streamlabs report includes numerous pie charts (including the one pictured above) that spell out Twitch’s dominance of the streaming space. In addition to accounting for 82% of streaming hours during Q3, the 13-year-old hub is also home to a whopping 85% of unique streaming channels.
In terms of watch time, the playing field is more even. Twitch claims about 60% of that pie, with YouTube Gaming, Kick, and Korean upstarts AfreecaTV and CHZZK claiming significant slices of attention. Based on that data, we can conclude that Twitch possesses more smaller channels than its competitors, with its viewership less concentrated among high-performing broadcasts.
Twitch’s control of streaming’s long tail invites a comparison to YouTube, where the long tail of long-form creators has long been active (sorry, that’s a lot of longs.) It’s no surprise, then, that Twitch is dealing with a lot of the same issues YouTube encountered during the 2010s. When you host a huge number of creators, it can be difficult to standardize communication and revenue streams across the platform. That’s something Twitch is finding out the hard way.
The streaming landscape could look completely different a year from now
Three years ago, Kick didn’t exist and AfreecaTV had barely expanded out of its core Korean market. At the time, Streamlabs’ reports measured services like Facebook Gaming and Mixer that have since faded.
For now, Twitch is still the top dog in streaming, as it was a year ago. But things could change quickly. Right-leaning streaming hub Rumble had a coming-out party on Election Day, when it set viewership records. Will it still be thriving a year from now? Will Kick continue growing, or will the promise of its early days fade? Can Twitch keep its massive community satisfied?
Thanks to Streamlabs and Stream Hatchet, we’ll be able to update the answers to those questions on a quarterly basis. Until then, you can check out the latest report by clicking here.
