It’s the beginning of 2018 and the year is destined to be a good one for the industry of live streaming, esports and gaming. With the start of two eSports leagues this year, Overwatch and NBA 2K, gaming and streaming will be making its biggest push to date into the mainstream. It’s definitely an exciting time to be in the industry, and streaming platforms will be vying even harder for more streamers and viewers craving content. Throughout 2017 we saw shifts every quarter in determining which streaming platform would land on top.

YouTube made some major gains in 2017 catching up to the behemoth Twitch, and saw a whopping 343% growth in monthly active streamers for the year.

Twitch still however continues to dominate with overall users and also saw a 197% increase for the year, showing the platform does not have any intension to slowing down. In December, Streamlabs added Periscope to the list of platforms we support, so for the first time numbers from Twitter’s social media platform will be included in our Q4 report. We expect to see steady growth on Periscope throughout 2018, and noticing continual growth in viewership, which means more streamers will follow.

Facebook, the #1 social media platform, saw a 62% increase in streamers this quarter, while Microsoft’s Mixer increased by 58%. As predicted, Streamlabs ended up the year with processing over $100M in tips to streamers, a 25% increase from 2016 and more than doubling the amount from 2015.

We anticipate a stellar year of growth in 2018, with all platforms rising steadily. Who knows maybe this will be the year that eSports and live streaming reach over $1Billion. Check out more 2018 predictions at the end of this report. Stay tuned!

➤ Highlights, TL;DR

In 2017 YouTube grew by a whopping 343% in monthly active streamers, while Twitch grew by 197%

In Q4: Facebook rose 62% and Mixer grew by 58% — YouTube and Twitch saw 10% growth equally

Streamlabs processed over $100M in tips for 2017; a 25% increase from 2016

Over 4.2M hours streamed of PLAYERUNKNOWN’S BATTLEGROUNDS, becoming the #1 game streamed on Twitch for the quarter

2 Million donations for Q4 totally $26M, the most in 2017

2018 predictions listed at the end of the report

Facebook and Mixer outpaces Twitch and YouTube in monthly active streamers