There is no doubt that Twitch and YouTube are the giants in an industry that is seeing unprecedented growth in today's online landscape. However, the two services will know that the likes of Rumble and Kick are breathing down their necks, and even minimal losses in viewership and revenue are partly because these competitors are working hard to bridge the gap every single day.
Main takeaways
- September was a massive month for YouTube Live, hitting an astounding 3.19B Hours Watched, a figure it has not ever reached
- Twitch monthly watch time fell below 1.7B hours for the first time in 2023
- Kick continued its remarkable streak of improving its watch time every single month of 2023, doing 52.64% better in Q3 than the previous quarter
- Rumble saw its best month in August, where it registered 35M HW and 704K Peak Viewers, both platform records
- YouTube Gaming maintained an almost identical share of overall YouTube Live watch time, with the difference being less than 2%
- Having seen its worst quarter ever in Q2, Bigo LIVE's numbers continued to nosedive, with Q3 officially its least-performing quarter of all time
Twitch viewer statistics in Q3 2023
Like Q2 and Q1, the purple platform's quarterly watch time was almost the same over the last two quarters, with Q3 seeing a negligible fall of 0.5%. Even though the site has continued to remain in demand among audiences and streamers, it did see its monthly watch time fall below 1.7B hours for the first time this year in September.
Just Chatting remained the most watched segment on Twitch, hitting 57M HW, with Grand Theft Auto V returning to the top three after missing out in Q2. League of Legends was third, followed by Valorant and Counter-Strike. Essentially, these five categories have remained the same from the last quarter, with only their placings within the top five changing. However, the two shooters and the MOBA did see drops in their watch time in Q3, ranging between 14% to 27%. Moreover, games contributed a whopping 79.5% of the total watch time for the streaming site between July and September.
Moving to the streamers, the most-watched name in the third quarter of the year was ibai, who is used to breaking records on the platform. Following him is Gaules, the only other online personality to break the 30M HW mark during these three months. Rounding off the top three is another regular on such lists — fps_shaka — the Japanese gamer known for his love of shooter titles and GTA V.
YouTube Live viewer statistics in Q3 2023
Unlike its age-old competitor, the red platform was able to see a quite significant rise in its watch time by 9.44%. It may not seem like much, but converting this into numbers from the massive viewer base that YouTube Live has gathered makes it 719M HW, which is more than the Q3 watch hours of smaller platforms, including Kick and Rumble.
A large quantity of the most watched channels were organizations that concentrated on News and Politics, while the most popular category remained Entertainment. Most impressively, September ended up being an amazing month for YouTube Live as it bagged a scarcely believable 3.19B HW, a record for the platform.
YouTube Live notched a huge 8B HW in Q3, of which YouTube Gaming contributed 16.60%, which is the opposite of Twitch's relationship with the same segment. This shows that the Google-owned site does not rely as much on games and related content to bring in viewers as Twitch, which has worked to be a strength for the platform over the last few years.
The most watched titles in the Gaming segment were MLBB, with LoL, Free Fire, GTA V, and Battlegrounds Mobile India following suit. The platform has been highly successful in Asia, especially the Southeast Asian market, and it continues to perform exceedingly well here, with most of its popular channels coming from these countries.
Kick viewer statistics in Q3 2023
Kick has continued its steady climb up the charts through the year, and the Q3 months were no different. August and September were especially lucrative months for the American company, being the only two months to register over 100M HW across 2023. Of course, this is the ripple effect of the likes of Drake, xQc, Amouranth, and Ninja joining the platform in June. It has to be noted that the site sometimes witnesses strange viewership spikes on a few channels, affecting the stats, but the changes is never too large.
The broadcasting website also continued supporting and encouraging content creators in the Slots & Casino genre, as seen from the fact that it was the second-most watched category across the third quarter. Moreover, games have slowly started becoming more popular, as half of the top ten most watched categories were games, including Fortnite, EA Sports FC 24, counter-Strike 2, and GTA V.
Nimo TV viewer statistics in Q3 2023
This website, a global version of the Chinese platform Huya, has had a rough few years, and while the year started off well enough, Q2 turned out to be rough. However, the latest quarter was much kinder, seeing Nimo TV achieve successive months of increasing watch hours for the first time since the start of the year.
The site, once home to some of the most popular gaming content creators, may not be able to boast that fact anymore, but it still relies heavily on gaming channels to pull in audiences. This is seen in the fact that seven of the ten most-watched categories in these three months were games, including popular mobile titles like PUBG, Free Fire, and Mobile Legends: Bang Bang.
AfreecaTV viewer statistics in Q3 2023
AfreecaTV's viewership saw a small fall in Q3, similar to the previous quarter, with July being the only month to see its HW number in green over the last two quarters. Korean viewers and content creators continued to contribute handsomely to the platform's numbers, with Minecraft being a surprise topper for the most-watched category during this phase.
Rumble viewer statistics in Q3 2023
This is the first full quarter for which stats are available for this American company in 2023 on our side. Rumble notched 103K HW between July and September, with its watch hours in these three months being pretty solid. August was the most successful 30-day period for the platform, registering 35M HW.
The platform has become quite the hotbed for political and religious debates and dialogue, and that is seen in the fact that a large number of the most popular channels on here come from these categories. Also, most of the famous handles are from America, showing the prevalence it has seen recently in the country, alongside reflecting its changing political climate.
Also read: 2023 Q2 Global Live Streaming Landscape: Kick grows 215% in watch time, worst quarter for Bigo LIVE
Bigo LIVE viewer statistics in Q3 2023
Bigo LIVE continued to lose fans as its viewership numbers saw a bigger leak than the previous quarter. It was the third straight three-month phase where it saw a fall in its watch hours, with its 30M HW meaning it reduced by 42.87% compared to Q2.
As has been the trend, it was most popular among Arabic audiences, with most of its in-demand channels coming from this community. Most of the popular games came from the shooter, sports, and open-world/adventure genres, with PUBG Mobile leading the charge.
Trovo viewer statistics in Q3 2023
Trovo also saw a reduction in its watch time across the third quarter, getting to 30M HW, down 14.18% compared to Q2, which itself saw a decrease from Q1. In fact, the latest three-month stretch saw the lowest numbers on the board for the platform this year. This was despite PUBG Mobile and GTA V being some of the most watched categories among viewers.
Nonolive viewer statistics in Q3 2023
Having seen growths in Q1 and Q2, this platform had to settle for a marginal fall in numbers. Its 27M HW in Q3 was a negligible fall of 5.95% compared to the second quarter, with Nonolive owing much of its stability this year to mobile games, which continue to dominate the platform. Another site that is famous in the Arabic community, some of the most watched games here are Brawl Stars, Roblox, Free Fire, and FIFA Soccer.
Mildom viewer statistics in Q3 2023
Another platform that has been seeing a downturn in fortunes this year is Mildom, whose 4.3M HW was a decline of 5.41% in its watch hours compared to the second quarter. Battle Royale games were once more the fad, while the audience base was almost exclusively. Japanese-speaking. Moreover, PC games like Fortnite, Minecraft, Valorant, and Apex Legends continued to rule the roost, pointing to a pretty obvious interest among its viewers in all things shooter and adventure.
Also read: 2023 Q1 Global Live Streaming Landscape: first statistic of Kick and growth of YouTube Gaming