According to the video solutions company Qwilt, Twitch is the number one most viewed online live streaming service in the United States.
With a 43% share of all live streaming viewership, it dominates its next closest competitor, which is the WWE, who draws 17.7% of the audience. Some other live streaming competitors Twitch is stomping would include USTREAM, MLB.com and ESPN who each get less that 11% of the share.
A vast majority of time spent on Twitch comes from gamers watching competitive online gaming. In all reality, the number watching live gaming is around 99% of all visitors. Qwilt says this comes from gamers going from just sharing stories with one another to being able to watch some of the best players in the world display their craft in real-time.
On average per month in 2013, Twitch reported 45 million unique viewers compared to 25 million per month in 2012. Over half of all users spent more than 20 hours per week on the site, totaling around 12 billion minutes of gaming being watched each month. As far as devices used, many are using consoles such as Xbox and PS4, but the majority of Twitch users are still using their computers to view content.
Not only is Twitch climbing the rankings in the live streaming category of services, but also in overall streaming service. In the United States, it is fifth behind Netflix, Google, Amazon and Hulu and seems to be on the rise. In at least five other countries, Twitch is in the top five among all streaming services.
To those on Twitch this may not come as a surprise, as the site has been experiencing massive growth, but to most outside of gaming, this may be a real eye opener.
