Global live-streaming audiences grew by 5% year-on-year in the second quarter of 2025, surpassing nine billion hours watched for the first time since late 2021, according to the latest Q2 2025 Live-Streaming Trends Report from Stream Hatchet.

YouTube Gaming achieved its best quarter on record, with viewers watching 2.2 billion hours of content. Despite this, Twitch retained its position as the market leader with a 54% share, although its quarterly viewing total fell below the five-billion mark for the first time since 2020. Kick continued to expand rapidly, increasing its market share by 5.5% and recording 983 million hours watched — a 113% year-on-year rise.

Several high-profile creators switched platforms during the quarter, with ten streamers surpassing one million hours watched on Kick despite no activity there a year earlier.

Esports viewership rose 6% year-on-year to 729 million hours, despite a 37% drop in the number of tournaments compared to Q2 2024. The quarter’s top events — the 2025 BLAST.tv Austin Major, LCK Rounds 1-2, and MPL Indonesia Season 15 — accounted for 35% of all esports viewing hours.

MPL Indonesia doubled its peak concurrent audience to 3.9 million compared with its 2023 edition. You can explore MOONTON’s strategy for the Mobile Legends Professional League (MPL) in greater detail in an interview with the company’s Head of Esports Ecosystem, Ray Ng, published by The Esports Radar.

Co-streaming remained a powerful force, with creator-led broadcasts matching official channels for total esports hours watched. The number of co-streamers exceeding 50,000 peak concurrent viewers rose 35% year-on-year, led by German streamer Mark “ohnePixel” Zimmerman’s 298,000-viewer peak during Intel Extreme Masters Dallas 2025.

The report also highlights the growing role of co-streamers in esports consumption. In Q2 2025, audiences were split evenly between official channels and creator-led broadcasts, with the number of high-performing co-streamers rising year-on-year. The full report can be accessed through Stream Hatchet’s website.

Numbers finally surpassing the records set during the COVID-19 lockdowns suggest a market recovery following the so-called “esports winter”. Executives from Electronic Arts (EA) discussed this rebound with The Esports Radar in an interview, which you can read in this link.