Kick Grew 30.7% in Q3 2026 as Twitch's Lead Shrank to 2.2x
By Kenji Arai··3 min read
Livestreaming hit a record 31.698 billion hours watched in Q3 2026 — and grew just 0.8%. Everything interesting is underneath that number: Kick up 30.7%, TikTok LIVE up 19%, YouTube down 13.7%.
Hours watched by platform
| Platform | Hours | QoQ | Share |
|---|---|---|---|
| YouTubeWas 49.5% share in Q2 | 13.62B | -13.7% | 43% |
| TikTok LIVERecord share | 10.6B | +19% | 33.5% |
| TwitchWas 13.8% | 4.51B | +4% | 14.2% |
| KickRecord share, fastest growth | 2.04B | +30.7% | 6.4% |
| CHZZKPassed SOOP for the first time | 335.2M | +2.1% | — |
| SOOPOvertaken after six quarters of CHZZK growth | 333M | — | — |
Quarter over quarter against Q2 2026. The remaining ~0.93B hours across smaller platforms is derived from the total rather than published directly. YouTube Gaming's ~1.98B sits inside YouTube's figure, not on top of it.
Five things that actually moved
Record total, almost no growth
31.698B hours watched is an all-time high, but it is only +0.8% on Q2. The headline barely moved; everything underneath it did.
Kick is the fastest-growing major platform
2.04B hours and +30.7% in a quarter, on a record 6.4% share. Twitch is now 2.2x Kick's size — it was 2.8x in Q2.
TikTok LIVE is closing on YouTube
10.6B hours at +19% puts TikTok LIVE within ten points of YouTube's share. A year ago that was not a race.
YouTube lost 13.7% in a quarter
Still the largest at 13.62B hours, but share fell from 49.5% to 43%. Entertainment and News & Politics, its two biggest categories, were both down.
Two platforms lost half their audience
Bigo LIVE and Rumble each shed close to 50% of hours watched. Four of the six smaller platforms declined; only CHZZK and SOOP grew.
Who led each platform
- YouTube: TheBurntPeanut, over 30M hours. YouTube also set an all-time concurrency record of 36.06M during the 2026 FIFA World Cup final, with over 24M concurrent on Sports alone.
- Twitch: Caedrel led, with TheBurntPeanut second. Gaming was 76.9% of Twitch hours, League of Legends prominent.
- Kick: absi (Hani Al-Qablan), over 50M hours — a figure Streams Charts publishes with a flag for unusual audience patterns on that channel, so treat it as reported rather than settled.
- TikTok LIVE: Chats led again, with Roblox among the top games. Gaming was 16.2% of hours.
What it means if you stream
A flat market with a 30% mover in it means share is changing hands, not being created. Kick is where the growth is, but it is also where the competition is arriving — our Kick vs Twitch comparison covers what actually differs for a streamer, and the viewership breakdown has the audience side.
The quieter story is gaming recovering on the platforms that had drifted away from it, while YouTube's non-gaming categories fell. Compare with the Q1 2026 report and with TikTok LIVE's 84% non-gaming split, which is the other half of why TikTok's growth looks nothing like Twitch's.
Full report and methodology: Q3 2026 Global Livestreaming Landscape on Streams Charts.
Frequently Asked Questions
How much did Kick grow in Q3 2026?
Kick reached 2.04 billion hours watched, up 30.7% on Q2 2026, making it the fastest-growing major livestreaming platform of the quarter. Its share of tracked watch time hit a record 6.4%. Just Chatting and GTA V were central to the quarter, and its top channel by hours watched was absi (Hani Al-Qablan) with over 50 million — a channel Streams Charts flags for unusual audience patterns.
Is Kick catching up to Twitch?
On this measure, yes, and quickly. Twitch did 4.51 billion hours in Q3 against Kick's 2.04 billion, which makes Twitch 2.2 times larger. In Q2 that multiple was 2.8. Twitch is still growing — up 4% on the quarter and up in share from 13.8% to 14.2% — so this is Kick growing faster rather than Twitch shrinking.
Which livestreaming platform is biggest in 2026?
YouTube, at 13.62 billion hours watched in Q3 2026 and 43% of tracked watch time. But it fell 13.7% on the quarter and its share dropped from 49.5%, while TikTok LIVE climbed 19% to 10.6 billion and a record 33.5%. The gap between first and second is now under ten percentage points.
How many hours were watched across livestreaming in Q3 2026?
31.698 billion, an all-time record — but only 0.8% above Q2 2026. The market as a whole is close to flat; the movement in this quarter is platforms taking share from each other rather than the pie growing.
Is gaming growing or shrinking on livestreaming platforms?
Growing, and on the platforms where it was weakest. Gaming made up 76.9% of Twitch hours and 16.2% of TikTok LIVE hours. YouTube Gaming did roughly 1.98 billion hours, lifting it to 14.5% of YouTube's own watch time from 11.3%, and to 6.2% of the tracked market from 5.6%. YouTube's non-gaming categories are what fell.