For the first time ever, Twitch has surpassed 3 billion total hours watched in a single quarter. This information comes direct from StreamLabs and Stream Hatchet. They also show that in addition to Twitch, YouTube, and Facebook Gaming also saw an increase in viewer numbers for the first quarter (Jan-Mar) of 2020.
According to the public facing report, Twitch had hit 3.1 billion hours watched. This is an increase of 17% from the previous quarter. Twitch also saw a 33% increase in the number of unique channels and had an average concurrent viewership count of 1.4 million people. The biggest gains came from February to March when the total number of hours watched on Twitch went up by 23%.
Gaming streams on YouTube also saw a nice 13% (quarter-over-quarter) bump, allowing them to hit 1.1 billion total hours of watch time. They also hit a new high for average number of concurrent viewers at almost 500,000 people. Likewise, Facebook Gaming comes out swinging with a reported 554 million hours watched by viewers for the quarter.
The same cannot be said for Mixer. The platform, which poached a lot of high-profile Twitch streamers in 2019, actually saw a decrease across the board. The Microsoft owned streaming platform had just 81 million hours of watch time in Q1 2020. This is actually a decrease of 7.3% quarter-over-quarter. Mixer's concurrent average viewer count was also down 5%.
All of this increase can be attributed to, you guessed it, people staying home due to the coronavirus. Which is good, because they should be staying home. Everyone stay home. Wash your hands and stay home.
