Streamlabs: Live streaming industry worth $10.1bn

The live streaming industry is now worth $10.1 billion and is expected to increase by $3 billion in 2019.

That's according to research from live streaming tools developer Streamlabs, which revealed the figures in its latest quarterly report.

Streaming is experiencing growth across multiple platforms; Streamlabs is the fastest growing software in the history of the sector, with over 40 per cent of all Twitch streamers using Streamlabs Open Broadcaster Software.

For the first time, Streamlabs' quarterly active users exceed two million, marking a 20 per cent increase quarter-over-quarter.

Twitch still remains the most popular streaming platform and continues to grow at a considerable rate, enjoying a 23 per cent increase in active streamers from 1.37 million to 1.63 million quarter-over-quarter.

The platform was banned in China just last month, but it remains too early to tell how much of an impact that will have on its growth.

Mixer saw steady growth over the last quarter with nearly 70,000 active streamers using the platform, up 31.7 per cent quarter-over-quarter.

The average number of concurrent viewers on Mixer also increased 13.1 per cent to just over 22,000.

Facebook Live enjoyed a considerable spike in streamers last quarter, increasing 55.3 per cent from 45,600 to over 70,000.

In terms of games Fortnite was live streamed for more than 19 million hours in Q3, a staggering five times more than runner-up League of Legends.

Although League of Legends remains the most popular professional esport, it is only the second-most streamed game with 3.6 million hours live streamed between July and September.

PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds, the previous titan of the streaming world, slipped into third place last quarter with 3.2 million hours live-streamed.

PUBG has declined every quarter this year, despite having broken multiple records in 2017, including being the first game to reach three million concurrent players on Steam.

"Several factors could have played a part in this," noted Streamlabs. "PUBG is notoriously buggy, the game engine hogs CPU, and the servers are unstable.

"Coupled with the fact that the Battle Royale genre has exploded in recent months and gamers have many more alternatives now, it's no surprise that PUBG is slipping in popularity."

Meanwhile World of Warcraft has enjoyed a comeback this quarter following the release of its latest expansion, Battle for Azeroth.

The fast-selling World of Warcraft expansion, Battle for Azeroth has seen 158,200 unique users live stream over 2.7 million hours last quarter, beating out Overwatch.

Overwatch has seen an 9.6 per cent increase in live streamers, but this has not offset a decline in total hours streamed, which decreased by three per cent.