During the first quarter of this year, Twitch broke 3 billion total hours watched for the first time. The momentum has continued from April through June as it surpassed 5 billion total hours watched for a single three-month span.
A new report from Streamlabs showcases just how popular Twitch has gotten during the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic as it previously averaged 2.7 billion hours watched last year. None of its competitors came close to matching its viewership as YouTube Gaming hit 1.5 billion hours and Facebook Gaming maxed out at 822 million, which is triple the amount it had last year. Microsoft’s now-defunct Mixer service came in fourth with only 106 million hours watched during the second quarter. Prominent streamers such as Shroud and Ninja, who reportedly made over $20 million to move to Mixer, could be switching back to Twitch and help boost it further. Twitch led in other key analytics, as well. Nearly 10 million unique channels streamed 192 million hours of content, which is more than double the previous quarter.
The most-watched game was Valorant, which set a single-day viewership record back on April 8. Riot Games’ competitive shooter is still going strong as it had 534 million hours watched, which was more than PUBG Mobile‘s 237 million. Fortnite came in third with 174 million views.
Meanwhile, the Electronic Sports League showed its dominance in the esports market as its ESL One and ESL Pro League events were the first and third most-watched esport events with 26 and 20 million hours watched, respectively. Popular Counter-Strike: Global Offensive tournament Premier Spring Showdown came in second place with fans watching for 22 million hours.