YouTube Live presents an increasingly serious competition for Twitch. This is the conclusion reached by Newzoo and Streamlab analysts, comparing the performance of the largest streaming platforms for the first quarter of the year.
Number of hours viewed on Twitch, YouTube Live and Mixer
The number of stream views on YouTube Live was only 25% of the total number of views on Twitch.
However, the YouTube service is ahead of both Twitch and Mixer:
- by the ratio of the average number of viewers per channel (26 more people than Twitch, and 41 more people than Mixer).
- by the ratio of the number of hours of broadcasts on the channel to the hours viewed.
It is worth noting that YouTube Live recorded more broadcast hours in the quarter compared to Mixer. The difference was 52%. At the same time, fewer channels have been created on YouTube Live than on Mixer.
The situation with the viewed broadcast hours in the first quarter of 2019 is as follows:
- Twitch — 2.7 billion hours. This is 7% more than in the fourth quarter of last year, as well as 33% more in annual terms.
- YouTube Live — 651 million hours. It is impossible to compare the results of the service on a quarterly and annual basis, since in 2018 Newzoo collected statistics only on the top 100 channels of the service. This year, all channels have already been analyzed.
- Mixer — 89 hours. In quarterly terms, the growth was 36%, in annual terms — 266%.
Analysts note that YouTube Live has seen a rapid increase in hours viewed. This is largely due to the merger of the service with YouTube Gaming.
Also on the topic: