• by Karlene Lukovitz  @KLmarketdaily, April 12, 2022

The rapid growth enjoyed by Twitch over the past two years is slowing noticeably, according to WARC TwitchTracker data.

The gaming-oriented video platform saw double-digit year-over-year growth in average monthly viewers each month between March 2020 and October 2021.

But viewers fell marginally in December 2021 and January 2022, and steeply in March.

The average 2.6 million viewers in March represented an 11.2% decline versus March 2021’s 2.93 million and an 11.9% decline versus February 2022’s 2.96 million.

In the 10 years it has been in existence, Twitch has evolved from a livestreaming service for gaming to a live social and interactive service, and the interactive transition accelerated and drove greater popularity for the platform during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Twitch remains gaming-oriented, but it has been expanding into other content genres.

For instance, sports consumption on the platform grew by 21% between April 2020 and August 2021. That was a bigger increase than seen in most other major social platforms, with the exception of TikTok, which saw a 30% increase in the same period.

Nearly two-thirds (61%) of U.S. Twitch users are between the ages of 18 and 24 — a younger audience than rivals including TikTok and Snapchat.

That’s a key reason behind its attraction for advertisers: 38% of those surveyed by WARC said they plan to spend more on Twitch this year.

However, another 27% said that Twitch isn’t in their media budgets at all — suggesting that the platform may need to expand its content offerings further, notes WARC.