Growth on Twitch, the world’s leading online streaming platform, has started to slow down in 2022.
The data experts from Fair Betting Sites have analyzed the latest Twitch data from Stream Charts to generate insights following a challenging year in the online streaming industry.
While the average viewers per channel increased for the third consecutive year, the average Twitch viewers and Twitch channels were both down in 2022.
Despite the decline, Twitch still managed to set a record for the number of games streamed over the last year.
Here are the highlights
- Active Twitch Channels Grow By 6% in 2022
- Average Twitch Viewers Down 7% YoY
- Average Twitch Channels Drop By 13% in 2022
- Hours Watched Declines By 6.7% Compared To 2021
- Average Viewers Per Channel Increases For Third Straight Year
- Number of Games Streamed Sets Record, Jumps 18.4%
Active Twitch Channels Grow By 6% in 2022
The number of active channels on Twitch continues to grow, according to the latest data from Stream Charts.
The total number of active Twitch channels grew by 6% to 49,616,536 in 2022.
The positive growth is a continued step in the right direction for the online streaming platform, which saw a decline in several key metrics throughout the year.
Twitch set a then-record for active channels in 2021, eclipsing 66.7 million last year, an increase of 24.86% year-over-year.
The new mark of 49.6 million active channels sets an all-time high for the streaming company.
Average Twitch Viewers Down 7% YoY
Unfortunately for the streaming platform, more active Twitch channels has not led to an increase in viewership over the past year.
Data from Stream Charts indicates that the average number of Twitch viewers plummeted to 30.9 million in 2022, a fall of more than 7%.
The downturn marks the first decline in average Twitch viewers since Stream Charts started gathering data back in 2018.
Average Twitch Channels Drop By 13% in 2022
Not only are viewers down, but the number of average Twitch channels also took a nosedive in 2022.
The average number of Twitch channels fell for the first time in company history this year, falling 13.1% compared to 2021.
Twitch had an average of 1.09 million channels online in December, erasing some of the gains made over the past year.
The online streaming giant saw its average number of channels grow by 133.7% to 1.04 million in 2020 and followed that up with another strong 19.9 percent gain in 2021.
Hours Watched Declines By 6.7% Compared To 2021
Even with more active channels, the number of total hours watched on Twitch fell for the first time ever in 2022.
Twitch users watched a total of 22.4 billion hours of streaming content on the platform in 2022, down 6.7% compared to 2021.
The online streaming platform saw its total number of hours watched nearly double in 2020, when Twitch users watched 18.5 billion hours of content, up 87.9% YoY.
Users followed that by watching a record-setting 24 billion hours of streaming content in 2021, a healthy 29.6% increase from the year prior.
Average Viewers Per Channel Increases For Third Straight Year
Despite an overall decline in average viewers, 2022 was still a good year for Twitch streamers.
In fact, it’s arguably easier to get started on the platform in 2022 than it was just a few years ago.
The average number of viewers per Twitch channel jumped by nearly two viewers per channel to 28.4 in 2022, marking the third consecutive year of positive growth.
In 2019, the average Twitch channel received approximately 31 viewers but that number dropped by 22% year-over-year, down to just 24 viewers per channel in 2020.
Since then, the average number of viewers per Twitch channel has grown by 17.1%.
Number of Games Streamed Jumps 18.4%
Twitch users streamed a record number of games in 2022.
According to data from Stream Charts, there were 441,569 games streamed on the platform, up 18.4% compared to 2021, when just 373,083 games were streamed on Twitch.
Not only was 2022 the highest mark ever recorded, but it also represented the biggest year-over-year increase since Stream Charts started collecting the data in 2019.
