In December 2023, the streaming platform Kick celebrated its one-year anniversary. The service has become one of the fastest-growing in the industry and is already fully competing with other platforms for live broadcasts. Kick not only develops its own star streamer base but also poaches talents from its competitors. For example, the platform has signed contracts with xQc, Amouranth, Tfue, Nickmercs, Dendi, and many others.
In total, Kick's streams accumulated 779.3 million Hours Watched over the past year. This is much smaller compared to YouTube and Twitch, but roughly on par with platforms like NimoTV and AfreecaTV. The most successful month for the platform was September, which saw a record Peak Viewers number (981.3K viewers): the broadcast of WestCOL's boxing tournament helped to achieve this result.
When it comes to channels, it has grown from 8.7K monthly active channels to 141.7K over the year. An enormous increase in activity occurred in June-July, when the number reached 348.9K. This happened right after the news that Kick had signed a two-year contract with xQc, so many other streamers decided to start their first Kick broadcasts, hinting to the administration that they were open for collaboration. However, the excitement was short-lived, and the number of channels continued to grow at the previous pace by August.
Like other platforms, Kick has a partnership program that was launched in April 2023. Popular streamers receive special conditions from the service for their loyalty: 95% of the revenue from subscriptions. The platform had the highest number of active partners in June — 2192 streamers. By the end of the year, their number had slightly decreased.
Most popular categories
The most popular category on Kick is Just Chatting, which amassed 268.2 million Hours Watched in 12 months. In comparison, a similar Twitch category gathers approximately the same amount in just one month.
Slots & Casino takes second place with approximately 168.3 million Hours Watched. The high position of this category is explained by the more lenient rules of the platform. This is because Kick is heavily supported by the Australian online casino Stake.com. It was the main sponsor of slot streamers on Twitch until stricter restrictions were imposed on such broadcasts. Kick allows gambling, so many gambling content creators switched to Kick.
Initially, IRL content creators and slot streamers formed the core of the streaming community on Kick, but with each month, the share of gaming broadcasts on the platform increased. Currently, local content creators mainly prefer shooters and battle royales, leading to Fortnite, Call of Duty, and Valorant topping the game rankings. Furthermore, GTA V secured two positions in the ranking, being one of the most popular games in recent years. Streams from GTA RP servers are widely popular on all platforms, and Kick is no exception.
Read more: Top GTA streamers of 2023
Among the non-gaming categories are Other, Watch Party, Pools, Hot Tubs & Bikinis, and Music Stations. Streamers in the first category often host public movie or anime viewings with their audience. The Music Stations mainly features round-the-clock music streams in various genres (similar to the Lofi Girl streams on YouTube). As for Pools, Hot Tubs & Bikinis, the name of the category speaks for itself. Interestingly, in the initial months of Kick's operation, this category was much more popular with viewers than towards the end of the year.
Most popular Kick streamers
The most-watched Kick streamer is Adin Ross. Over the Kick's first year, his streams accumulated 54.6 million HW. Adin Ross mostly streamed in the Just Chatting and Slots Casino categories, but occasionally streamed various games like Fortnite or Call of Duty. His most popular stream occurred on September 20, attracting 333.5K PV — during which he baited the audience with a supposedly joint broadcast with Kim Jong Un (who was in fact an actor impersonating the North Korean leader).
Two other big names in terms of Hours Watched are ROSHTEIN and xQc, with 26.1 million and 25.2 million Hours Watched, respectively. The former primarily hosted online casino streams, while the latter entertained viewers with reactions, participation in show events, and Just Chatting. It's worth noting that ROSHTEIN started streaming on Kick much earlier than xQc, with his first broadcasts taking place in December 2022, while the Canadian first went live on the platform in June.
In fourth place in the ranking is WestCOL from Colombia, with his Kick channel accumulating 22.5 million Hours Watched. WestCOL also stood out for hosting the most popular broadcast on the platform, this was the first major streaming event supported by the Kick platform. Read more about this below.
The top 10 most watched Kick streamers also include n3on, ac7ionman, Ice Poseidon, mellstroy, classybeef, and sxb. Almost all of them specialize in entertainment content: they make IRL streams from their travels, interact with fans in Just Chatting, participate in collaborations with other content creators, play online casino games, and more. Only sxb focuses heavily on gaming — he often streams GTA V, Fortnite, Call of Duty, and other popular titles.
The leader among female streamers on Kick is AMOURANTH. She joined Kick in the summer of 2023 and by the beginning of December, she was able to accumulate almost 4.3 million HW. In second place is Jenfoxxx, whose channel fell behind the leader in HW by two times. In addition to AMOURANTH and Jenfoxxx, only two other female streamers were able to accumulate over a million HW: corinnakopf and nadia.
Most popular broadcasts on Kick
The most popular broadcast on Kick in the platform's first year was hosted by the Colombian streamer WestCOL — on September 24, his stream titled Stream Fighters 2 was watched by 806.6K PV. This result made WestCOL the most popular streamer from Latin America in the history of live broadcasts. He confidently surpassed Gaules, casimito, ElSpreen, Juans Guarinzo, and other top content creators. In addition to WestCOL, popular broadcasts on Kick also included Adin Ross, n3on, Drake, xQc and others.
Most popular languages on Kick
The most popular language for broadcasts on Kick is English, amassing over 72% of the total Hours Watched on the platform. In second place is the Spanish language, which accounts for 7.5% of the platform's HW number, mainly because of the streamers from Latin America. The Top 5 popular languages also include French, Arabic, and Russian, accumulating 3-5% of the total Hours Watched of the platform.
After the first year, Kick has already become one of the biggest live streaming services in the West and has even started to compete with Twitch and YouTube for top content creators. However, questions remain about viewbotting on streams, and some streamers not agreeing with Kick's policy regarding gambling. Nevertheless, these recent issues do not overshadow the platform's overall accomplishments, and it will be very interesting to see what Kick can achieve by its second anniversary.
