VTubing in the livestreaming industry experienced a decline in viewership during Q3 of 2025, falling from the earlier, record-setting quarters of the year — although viewership overall dipped, engagement and growth among virtual streamers has stayed strong. Included in this joint report from Streams Charts and VSTATS, we have refined and expanded the data, now including many more VTubing creators.
For Q3 2025, we have vastly expanded our dataset of VTubers, now accounting for many more independent streamers. These creators are continuing to become ever-more crucial to the overall scene, although top viewership continues to be dominated by creators signed to top agencies. Q3 2025 was full of news such as new debuts, marathon events, and VShojo’s closure; all this and more is explored below.
Our new refined data, which now includes over 11,000 active VTubing channels, led us to refined watch time numbers for the first sections of 2025. The hype and excitement around livestreaming is clear to see in the first months of the year, and this has calmed down slightly, in both watch time and overall channels.
Q3 2025 saw the VTubing industry earn 462.5M Hours Watched (HW), a noticeable decrease from the previous quarters. However, contextualizing this drop, Q3 also experienced a similar decrease in broadcasting time overall, and the decrease of 12.3% follows VTubings most-watched quarters ever. The record-breaking expansion of VTubing may have calmed down, but top creators continued consistent support from their followers.
The demographics of VTubing shifted slightly following a dip in active female creators. Last quarter, female creators made up almost two-thirds of all virtual streamers, but their hold has slipped slightly. Other channel demographics remained stable, not advancing their position but staying firm.
In terms of the global map of VTubers, Japan’s overall share of creators continues to dip as the industry expands across the world. Similar to previous quarters, strong markets in English-speaking countries across the globe, Asian countries like Taiwan, South Korea, and Thailand, and countless other global countries have fielded thousands of VTubing entertainers.
In terms of overall share of VTubing channels, Twitch continues to host new, fresh faces to the VTubing scene. While the purple platform is home to its own star line-up of top creators as well as many new entrants, YouTube Live remains the strongest bastion of viewership for VTubing — largely thanks to its strong foothold in the Japanese market.
Other minor platforms such as Kick, Naver’s CHZZK, and SOOP Korea (formerly AfreecaTV) all maintained their viewerships and streamers for the quarter. Kick VTubers are far more likely to be independent creators than their counterparts on other Korean platforms, where agencies have established the first few VTubing groups for this audience.
The outlook of VTubing agencies for Q3 2025 highlights the shift towards independent creators in the industry. In tandem with the overall dip in viewership for the industry, top agencies like hololive and NIJISANJI recorded substantial drops in watch time, influenced by having held fewer large-scale events this quarter. Only relatively smaller agencies are enjoying quarter-on-quarter growth.
The race between hololive and NIJISANJI for the top spot has narrowed significantly, with a half-percent now only separating the two. VShojo also managed to record a slight amount of watch time earlier in the quarter before they shut down, following accusations of withheld salary and mismanagement of charity funds from staff.
Korean VTubing group ISEGYE IDOL was the biggest winner of Q3, increasing their watch time by almost 24% compared to Q2 and now making up 1.8% of VTubing’s total global viewership.
The top VTubers for the quarter shifted around slightly, but did not largely change; Pekora still leads the pack, now followed by Miko and then Kuzuha. Many hololive creators dominated the top-end of our rankings, but South Korea’s 탬탬버린 snagged the final spot, making her the only VTuber on Naver’s CHZZK to appear in these leaderboards.
The third quarter of 2025 also saw English-language creators ironmouse and MichiMochievee take up the final spots of our ranking. Previously affiliated with VShojo, these two streamers have continued to advance their careers and host their own, independent events. Michi’s “Scamberthon” marathon event launched her to the top of Twitch charts in August, and she also enjoyed strong viewership for a Twitch Drops-boosted Rust event.
In the English-speaking section of VTubers specifically, friends Ironmouse and MichiMochievee led ahead of the pack. Other top creators remained similar to previous quarters, with entrants from North America, Europe, and some of Japan’s English-speaking creators. Independent creators from the Philippines Deme enjoyed particularly strong growth to earn over 1.51M HW, followed closely by AI-powered “Neuro-sama” of vedal987 in the ultimate spot here.
The average viewership of VTubers throughout the quarter shows the still-present power of Japanese creators, despite the global expansion and diversification of the livestreaming sector as a whole. Japanese creators like Miko, Marine, and Subaru made up the most popular VTubers for Q3: all representatives of hololive, followed by many other hololive-affiliates.
Independent creator Sameko Saba from the US was the only VTuber outside of Japan to rank on this competitive leaderboard. Saba’s entrance to VTubing in Q2 2025 was one of the most-watched debuts ever, and she has quickly become a significant leader for the scene, despite her much lower Airtime than her peers. Fans have speculated Saba previously worked with a top-name agency, similar to many new entries who have found immediate success in recent times.
The VTubing industry continues to diversify itself from its original, Japanese market. Independent VTubers from around the globe are finding their footing in the livestreaming industry, and bringing the new wave of virtual creators to countless new fans. Q3 slowed down slightly compared to the earlier results of 2025, but 2025 remains VTubing’s most successful year ever.
