Livestreaming Statistics 2026: Twitch, Kick, YouTube Live and TikTok LIVE

September 25, 2026 10 minute read By Ege Özalp, Founder, GingerLive

People watched a record 31.4 billion hours of livestreams in Q2 2026, according to Streams Charts. YouTube took 49.5% of those hours, TikTok LIVE 28.3%, Twitch 13.8% and Kick 5%. Twitch still averages about 2.1 million concurrent viewers, and Kick is the fastest-growing major platform, with hours watched up about 41% year on year. Below are the key statistics for each platform, with sources, plus data from GingerLive's own 1,000+ streamer network.

Key takeaways

Record 31.4B livestream hours watched in Q2 2026 (Streams Charts), up 8% on Q1.
Share of hours in Q2 2026: YouTube 49.5%, TikTok LIVE 28.3%, Twitch 13.8%, Kick 5%.
Twitch: 4.3B hours in Q2 2026, ~2.15M average concurrent viewers (Aug 2026), about 70% of viewers aged 18–34.
Kick: 1.56B hours in Q2 2026, about 41% more than a year earlier; 81.7% of its audience is aged 18–34.
GingerLive network: 1,000+ streamers, 30M+ unique reach a year and ~99% ad view-through rate.

Livestreaming market share by platform (Q2 2026)

Streams Charts tracks hours watched across the major livestreaming platforms (excluding China). Q2 2026 was the biggest quarter on record.

Platform	Hours watched, Q2 2026	Change vs Q1 2026	Share of all hours
YouTube (all live)	15.58B	+14.8%	49.5%
TikTok LIVE	8.91B	+0.9%	28.3%
Twitch	4.33B	−0.9%	13.8%
Kick	1.56B	+7.6%	5.0%
All tracked platforms	31.44B	+8%	100%

Source: Streams Charts, Q2 2026 global livestreaming landscape (platform figures from the report's charts). YouTube's jump was helped by World Cup coverage: CazéTV alone generated more than 1B hours on YouTube in the quarter.

Full-year 2025

Platform	Hours watched, 2025	Share
YouTube (all live)	56.67B (+2% YoY)	47.7%
TikTok LIVE	35.32B	29.7%
Twitch	18.03B (−10.6% YoY)	15.2%
Kick	5.11B (+124% YoY)	4.3%
All tracked platforms	118.92B	100%

Why other reports show different totals: Stream Hatchet reported 17.5B hours for Q2 2026 because it doesn't count all general YouTube Live content, so TikTok LIVE's 8.9B hours is 50.9% of its total. Always read a share figure alongside the tracker that produced it.

Twitch statistics

Statistic	Value	Period	Source
Hours watched	4.33B	Q2 2026	Streams Charts
Hours watched	1.56B (best month of 2026)	Aug 2026	Streams Charts
Average concurrent viewers	2,153,090	Aug 2026	TwitchTracker
Peak concurrent viewers	4.4M+ (best in 11 months)	Jun 2026	Streams Charts
Average live channels at any time	91,677	Aug 2026	TwitchTracker
Active streamers in the month (estimate)	6.73M	Aug 2026	TwitchTracker
Hours watched	18.03B (−10.6% YoY)	2025	Streams Charts
Gaming content watched	8.6B+ hours	Jan–Sep 2026	Twitch
Share of Twitch hours that are gaming	75.5%	Q2 2026	Streams Charts
Hours on streams with Drops enabled	1.6B (+46%)	Jan–Sep 2026	Twitch
Monthly visitors	105M average	2023 (Twitch data)	Twitch

Top Twitch categories (August 2026, hours watched)

Just Chatting: 216.6M
League of Legends: 75.1M
Dota 2: 68.2M
Counter-Strike: 62.5M
Escape From Tarkov: 51.3M

Source: Streams Charts. Part of Twitch's 2025 decline reflects its crackdown on viewbots, according to both Streams Charts and Stream Hatchet, so falling hours partly mean cleaner numbers.

Twitch audience demographics

Age: nearly 70% of Twitch viewers are aged 18–34 (Twitch internal data, 2022, still cited on Twitch's ad site). Similarweb puts 18–24 as the largest age group of twitch.tv web visitors (August 2026).
Gender: twitch.tv web visitors are 72.8% male and 27.2% female (Similarweb, August 2026; website traffic only, not app viewers).
Top countries (web traffic, August 2026): United States 24.2%, Russia 11.3%, Germany 8.0%, France 6.4%, Spain 4.7% (Similarweb).
Teens: 17% of US teens, and 30% of US teens who play video games, say they use Twitch (Pew Research Center, 2023 survey).
Hard to reach elsewhere: about 65% of Twitch viewers can't be reached on leading social channels (GWI/Comscore US, 2022, cited by Twitch).

Twitch doesn't publish current monthly or daily active user counts. Figures circulating online without a source should be treated with caution.

Kick statistics

Statistic	Value	Period	Source
Hours watched	1.56B (+7.6% vs Q1)	Q2 2026	Streams Charts (Kick reports 1.5B+)
Year-on-year growth in hours watched	≈ +41% (1.56B vs 1.11B)	Q2 2026 vs Q2 2025	GingerLive calculation from Streams Charts data
Hours watched (record month)	669.1M; average viewers above 900K for the first time; 2.36M peak	Aug 2026	Streams Charts
Active users	100M+	2026	Kick
Audience aged 18–34	81.7%	2026	Kick
New users	39M in 2025; 27M in H1 2026	2025–2026	Kick
Creators streaming per month	41,000+	2026	Kick
Content mix	48% gaming; 37% talk, podcasts and IRL	2026	Kick
Hours watched	5.11B (+124% YoY)	2025	Streams Charts (Stream Hatchet: 4.5B, +131%)
Twitch-to-Kick hours ratio	~3× (down from ~5× a year earlier)	Q2 2026	Streams Charts
Esports hours growth	+66% vs Q1	Q2 2026	Streams Charts

Kick opened to advertisers for the first time in August 2026. For what that means for brands, see how to advertise on Kick, and for streamers, the Kick Partner Program guide. Streams Charts cautions that some Kick top-channel rankings may be inflated by viewbots.

YouTube Live and TikTok LIVE statistics

YouTube Live generated 15.58B hours in Q2 2026 (+14.8% vs Q1), 49.5% of all livestream hours tracked by Streams Charts. In 2025 it logged 56.67B hours, 47.7% of the total.
YouTube Gaming live drew 1.77B hours in Q2 2026 (−12.4% vs Q1), per Streams Charts. Stream Hatchet reported 8.8B YouTube Gaming live hours in 2025, its best year.
TikTok LIVE generated 8.91B hours in Q2 2026 (28.3% share) and 35.32B hours in 2025 (29.7% share), per Streams Charts.

Neither YouTube nor TikTok publishes first-party live-viewing totals, so third-party trackers are the best available source.

Gen Z and young-adult livestream viewing

25% of US adults aged 18–34 watch live streams several times a day (Vorhaus Advisors survey, 2025, via Statista).
25.4% of internet users worldwide watch live-streamed video weekly (Q4 2025, via Statista).
81.7% of Kick's audience and about 70% of Twitch's are aged 18–34 (Kick 2026; Twitch 2022).
30% of US teen gamers use Twitch (Pew Research Center, 2023 survey).

What this means for reaching younger audiences: Gen Z advertising guide.

GingerLive network data (first-party)

Alongside the market figures, these are GingerLive's own figures from running in-stream ads across Twitch, Kick, YouTube Live and TikTok LIVE:

Metric	GingerLive network
Streamer network	1,000+ streamers across four platforms
Unique reach per year	30M+
Hours of livestreams watched monthly across the network	58M
Ad view-through rate (VTR)	~99%
Video completion rate	~100%
Click-through rate vs industry average	+125%
Campaigns delivered (2025)	60+
Streams with ads placed	13,000+

Campaign-level results, including third-party-verified VTR and CTR, are in livestream advertising benchmarks and the case studies.

Methodology and how to cite this page

Every figure on this page was checked against its source on 25 September 2026. Market figures come from Streams Charts, Stream Hatchet, TwitchTracker, Twitch, Kick, Similarweb, Pew Research Center and Statista. Some Streams Charts platform figures are published only in the report's charts. The Kick year-on-year growth figure is GingerLive's calculation from two Streams Charts quarters. GingerLive network figures are first-party.

Trackers measure differently, especially on which YouTube and TikTok content counts as "livestreaming", so compare figures from the same source. We refresh this page after each quarterly report.

To cite: "Livestreaming Statistics 2026", GingerLive, https://gingerlive.io/resources/livestreaming-statistics/ (link to the page, and to the original source for third-party figures).

Frequently asked questions

How many hours of livestreams are watched?+

A record 31.4 billion hours in Q2 2026 across the major platforms tracked by Streams Charts (excluding China), up 8% on Q1. In 2025 the total was 118.9 billion hours.

What is the most-watched livestreaming platform?+

YouTube, with 49.5% of livestream hours watched in Q2 2026 (Streams Charts). TikTok LIVE had 28.3%, Twitch 13.8% and Kick 5%.

How many people watch Twitch?+

Twitch averaged about 2.15 million concurrent viewers in August 2026 (TwitchTracker) and peaked above 4.4 million in June 2026 (Streams Charts). Twitch reported 105 million average monthly visitors in 2023 and doesn't publish current monthly active users.

What are Twitch's audience demographics?+

Nearly 70% of Twitch viewers are aged 18–34 (Twitch, 2022). twitch.tv web visitors are about 73% male, and the US is the largest country at 24% of web traffic (Similarweb, August 2026).

Is Twitch viewership declining?+

Twitch hours watched fell about 10.6% in 2025 to 18.0 billion (Streams Charts), partly due to its viewbot crackdown. In 2026 it has been broadly stable, with Q2 at 4.33 billion hours (−0.9% vs Q1) and August 2026 its best month of the year.

How fast is Kick growing?+

Kick's hours watched reached 1.56 billion in Q2 2026, about 41% more than Q2 2025 (GingerLive calculation from Streams Charts data), after growing 124% in 2025. Kick reports 100M+ active users.

How many people watch live streams weekly?+

About 25.4% of internet users worldwide watch live-streamed video weekly (Q4 2025, via Statista), and 25% of US adults aged 18–34 watch live streams several times a day (Vorhaus Advisors, 2025).