After a slight dip in Q3, the VTuber segment resumed its growth toward the end of last year and continued into early 2025. By the end of Q1, VTuber livestreams surpassed 500 million Hours Watched for the first time in history, despite being produced by fewer creators than in the past two years. Streams Charts together with VSTATS breaks down the current state of the VTuber market, highlighting the most popular agencies and top-performing creators.
VTuber content is enjoying record-high demand, with back-to-back quarterly gains of 14% and 7%. What’s notable is that these numbers aren’t driven by more creators entering the scene, they reflect bigger audiences for the streamers already active.
The number of active VTuber channels has been gradually declining over the past two quarters. For the first time in a year and a half, the total dipped below 6,000 active livestreaming VTubers. Although it’s difficult to attribute the trend to a single cause, the drop in active VTuber channels could indicate that creators who fail to gain traction are increasingly stepping away from streaming, a possible result of rising market saturation.
In terms of VTuber distribution across platforms, the overall landscape remains stable with no major shifts in platform preference. Interestingly, while Twitch continues to grow its share of active VTubers, YouTube-based creators still account for over 60% of total Hours Watched.
Furthermore, it is noteworthy that Kick's share of VTubers has increased marginally, becoming the first platform besides Twitch and YouTube to account for over 1% of the market. Additionally, there has been a notable rise in viewership for Korean VTubers, particularly those streaming on the local platform SOOP.
The gender and country distribution of VTubers has remained largely unchanged. Female VTubers continue to represent over 70% of the total (at least within the virtual domain), with Japan maintaining a substantial lead. The United States follows at a considerable distance, while other countries collectively account for no more than 3.5% of the market.
In terms of VTuber agencies, which account for roughly two-thirds of total viewership, the overall performance has remained largely stable. Hololive continues to lead not only among talent agencies but across the entire VTuber space. In February, it recorded the strongest monthly viewership of the quarter, surpassing 49.27 million Hours Watched. NIJISANJI holds a solid second place, maintaining a significant share of the audience. Meanwhile, a notable development is the rise of Mythic Talent, which has grown from a negligible presence to now commanding over 3% of the total viewership.
Independent VTubers remain the dominant group in both channel count and viewership. However, in Q1 2025, the number of these creators was slightly lower than in the previous quarter, and they generated marginally less viewership, though the decrease was minimal.
As for individual personalities, it's no surprise that the top spots in terms of viewership are once again occupied by Pekora, Miko, and Kuzuha. All three remain incredibly popular in Japan and continue to outperform the rest by a significant margin when it comes to viewer engagement. One emerging star to watch is Vivi, who ranked 8th this quarter. Debuting in November under Hololive’s new DEV_IS brand, Vivi had a slow start, posting modest numbers through January. However, she quickly gained momentum in February after captivating Hololive fans with her engaging Minecraft streams.
English-speaking creators also delivered strong results, with two making it into the overall top 10: Twitch star Ironmouse and Hololive’s Koseki Bijou.
When looking exclusively at English-speaking creators, Twitch streamers dominate, further confirming the platform's significance in the English-speaking segment of the industry. In the final top 10, only two streamers exclusively stream on YouTube.
Top VTubers regularly attract tens of thousands of viewers to their streams, and in terms of average viewership, the quarter's absolute leader was Miko, the only one whose streams were consistently watched by over 40,000 concurrent viewers on average. A phenomenal result when compared to the entire live streaming industry.
It's worth noting that Japanese VTubers have the highest average viewership: people from the Land of the Rising Sun are far more dedicated and actively follow their idols compared to, for example, fans of English-speaking creators.
The top VTubers by follower growth gained close to 200,000 new subscribers, with Marine Ch. from Hololive leading the category. Her content primarily focused on Minecraft, along with some of the latest game releases such as Monster Hunter Wilds. Beyond her livestreams, Marine has also built a strong presence through Shorts, helping to expand her audience even further. Following Gura’s graduation, previously the most-subscribed VTuber, Marine is now set to become the most-followed active VTuber globally.
