Mixer, Facebook Gaming chipped away at Twitch market share in 2019
But Twitch is still far and away the streaming giant, with 73% of all streaming hours watched
Though Twitch far, far and away retained the biggest section of the streaming platform market in 2019, smaller platforms like Mixer and Facebook Gaming are slowly chipping away at it.
StreamElements and Arsenal have released their State of the Stream report for 2019, in which they revealed that Twitch held 73% of the platform market share by hours watched. YouTube Gaming held 21%, and Mixer and Facebook Gaming had 3% each.
This is not a huge change from last year, when Twitch sat at 75%. But Mixer and Facebook Gaming were at 1% last year, and while the share growth doesn't look large, their year-over-year individual growth is more impressive. Facebook Gaming grew 210% year-over-year to 356 million total hours watched, and Mixer grew 149% to 354 million. Facebook Gaming also surpassed Mixer in total hours watched from 2018 to 2019.
Compare that to Twitch, which grew 20% year-over-year to 9.3 billion hours watched, and YouTube Gaming grew 16% year-over-year with 2.7 billion.
By game, League of Legends is once more the most-watched game of the year on Twitch. Last year it had a seven-year streak broken by Fortnite, but it took the top spot again this year, reaching 990 million hours watched. Fortnite was in second at 884 million. Apex Legends was the only new game in the top 10, breaking in at No.8 with 294 million hours watched. Among the top ten games, Fortnite saw the biggest year-over-year drop in viewership of 27%.
Tfue was the most-watched streamer of the year at 88 million hours watched, with Shroud behind him at 66 million and Ninja sitting at No.5 with 57 million. All top ten most-watched streamers were once again men, with the most-watched woman streamer, Saddummy, coming in about 17 million hours watched behind the No.10 most-watched overall streamer, Nickmercs.
The back half of the year saw numerous exclusivity deals signed with streamers across all platforms. This included Mixer making deals with Shroud and Ninja, Facebook Gaming picking up Hearthstone streamer DisguisedToast, YouTube Gaming signined CouRage, and Twitch signing DrLupo, Lirik, and TimTheTatman just last week.