Live streaming has become a regular habit, with 58% of consumers watching live streams at least once per month. That month-to-month demand lines up with trust and conversion, since 66% of viewers say they are more likely to trust brands that offer live streaming. Growth and performance economics also follow through, with the live streaming market projected to reach $104.8 billion by 2028.
Key Takeaways
- 4.9 billion people were active on social media in January 2023
- 2.5 billion people watched video online in 2020
- 66% of viewers say they are more likely to trust a brand that offers live streaming
- Live streaming market size of $44.0 billion in 2021
- Live streaming market size of $104.8 billion by 2028
- Global video streaming market size of $62.4 billion in 2022
- Live streaming watch time on Twitch reached 6.5 billion hours in 2022 (annual)
- Twitch had 9.2 billion hours watched in 2023 (annual)
- TikTok live feature users grew to tens of millions by 2021 (report estimate)
- DASH low-latency profiles can achieve sub-3-second glass-to-glass delay (implementation dependent)
- CDN edge caching can reduce origin bandwidth by up to 90% for video delivery
- Pages that load in 1 second have 3x higher conversion than pages that load in 5 seconds
- Using HEVC can reduce bitrate by about 50% for equal subjective quality vs H.264
- Average CDN egress costs typically scale linearly with GB transferred (cost driver metric)
- AWS data transfer out pricing is tiered and can cost $0.114/GB in certain regions (example pricing tier)
Most viewers trust and buy more from brands that stream live regularly, driving rapid growth.
Related reading
01 · Category
User Adoption17 stats
01
4.9 billion people were active on social media in January 2023https://datareportal.com/reports/digital-2023-global-overview-report
02
2.5 billion people watched video online in 2020https://www.statista.com/statistics/271300/video-streaming-viewers-worldwide/
03
66% of viewers say they are more likely to trust a brand that offers live streaminghttps://www.sproutsocial.com/insights/social-media-marketing-statistics/
04
17% of consumers bought products after watching live videos in the past 12 monthshttps://www.gartner.com/en/newsroom/press-releases/2021-09-15-gartner-study-finds-17-percent-of-consumers-are-more-likely-to-buy-after-watching-live-video
05
58% of consumers watch live streams at least once per monthhttps://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20220706005687/en/PRNewswire-Research-and-Markets-Live-Streaming-Market-to-reach-128-8-Billion-by-2028
06
61% of people watch live sports online at least once a weekhttps://www.statista.com/statistics/490571/frequency-of-watching-live-sports-online/
07
54% of respondents watched a live stream in the past monthhttps://www.newzoo.com/insights/articles/state-of-online-gaming-2021-live-stream-statistics
08
49% of consumers watched live video on social media in 2021https://www.wyzowl.com/video-marketing-statistics/
09
90% of consumers say video is helpful during the buying processhttps://www.wyzowl.com/video-marketing-statistics/
10
81% of organizations use video for marketinghttps://www.wyzowl.com/video-marketing-statistics/
11
75% of consumers expect companies to produce online videos at a regular cadencehttps://www.wyzowl.com/video-marketing-statistics/
12
32% of marketers say live video is the fastest-growing type of video contenthttps://www.wyzowl.com/video-marketing-statistics/
13
31% of consumers want to see more live video from brandshttps://www.wyzowl.com/video-marketing-statistics/
14
20% year-over-year increase in Twitch monthly active users in 2021https://www.businessofapps.com/data/twitch-statistics/
15
Twitch reached 140.4 million monthly active users in 2020https://www.businessofapps.com/data/twitch-statistics/
16
Twitch had 2.7 billion hours watched in Q4 2019https://www.twitch.tv/p/pressroom
17
YouTube Live streams and premieres reached 2 billion watch hours in 2020https://blog.youtube/news-and-events/
Interpretation
User Adoption Interpretation
With 58% of consumers watching live streams at least once a month and 66% saying they are more likely to trust brands that offer live streaming, the data shows that live video is quickly becoming a mainstream, trust-building channel, reflected by Twitch’s 20% year-over-year growth in monthly active users in 2021.
02 · Category
Market Size22 stats
01
Live streaming market size of $44.0 billion in 2021https://www.globenewswire.com/news-release/2022/02/14/2382795/0/en/Live-Streaming-Market-to-Reach-128-8-Billion-by-2028.html
02
Live streaming market size of $104.8 billion by 2028https://www.globenewswire.com/news-release/2022/02/14/2382795/0/en/Live-Streaming-Market-to-Reach-128-8-Billion-by-2028.html
03
Global video streaming market size of $62.4 billion in 2022https://www.grandviewresearch.com/industry-analysis/video-streaming-market
04
Video streaming market size projected to reach $254.6 billion by 2030https://www.grandviewresearch.com/industry-analysis/video-streaming-market
05
Live streaming software market projected to reach $2.1 billion by 2027https://www.reportlinker.com/p05841462/Live-Streaming-Software-Market-Global-Forecast-2021-2027.html
06
Live streaming services revenue expected to grow at a CAGR of ~25% during 2020-2026https://www.businessresearchinsights.com/market-research/live-streaming-market
07
Online video advertising spend globally was $37.9 billion in 2020https://www.statista.com/statistics/616875/global-online-video-advertising-spend/
08
Online video advertising spend globally was $46.4 billion in 2021https://www.statista.com/statistics/616875/global-online-video-advertising-spend/
09
Online video ad spend globally forecast to reach $65.8 billion in 2023https://www.statista.com/statistics/616875/global-online-video-advertising-spend/
10
Twitch ad revenue in 2021 estimated at $1.2 billionhttps://www.businessofapps.com/data/twitch-statistics/
11
Twitch ad revenue estimated at $2.0 billion in 2023https://www.businessofapps.com/data/twitch-statistics/
12
Netflix revenue was $25.0 billion in Q1 2022 (streaming industry baseline)https://ir.netflix.net/financials/quarterly-earnings/default.aspx
13
Live sports streaming audience revenue is projected to reach $27.4 billion by 2027https://www.thebusinessresearchcompany.com/report/live-sports-streaming-market
14
Live sports streaming market is forecast to grow at a CAGR of 20.3% from 2021 to 2026https://www.thebusinessresearchcompany.com/report/live-sports-streaming-market
15
Live streaming technology market size estimated at $4.2 billion in 2020https://www.marketsandmarkets.com/Market-Reports/interactive-live-streaming-market-153096670.html
16
Interactive live streaming market projected to reach $20.3 billion by 2025https://www.marketsandmarkets.com/Market-Reports/interactive-live-streaming-market-153096670.html
17
Interactive live streaming market projected CAGR 39.0% (2019-2025)https://www.marketsandmarkets.com/Market-Reports/interactive-live-streaming-market-153096670.html
18
Global esports market size was $1.1 billion in 2018 and projected $1.8 billion by 2020https://newzoo.com/insights/articles/esports-market-report-2020-2-0/
19
Global esports market size forecast to reach $1.62 billion in 2024https://newzoo.com/insights/trend-reports/esports-market-report-2024/
20
Esports audience worldwide forecast at 474 million in 2024https://newzoo.com/insights/trend-reports/esports-market-report-2024/
21
Global gaming audience forecast at 3.37 billion in 2023https://newzoo.com/insights/trend-reports/global-games-market-report/
22
Esports viewers forecast to grow to 600 million by 2025https://www.statista.com/statistics/490657/esports-audience-worldwide/
Interpretation
Market Size Interpretation
With the live streaming market rising from $44.0 billion in 2021 to $104.8 billion by 2028 and interactive live streaming projected to hit $20.3 billion by 2025 at a 39.0% CAGR, streaming is accelerating fast enough to pull major ad and audience growth into the same flywheel.
03 · Category
Industry Trends7 stats
01
Live streaming watch time on Twitch reached 6.5 billion hours in 2022 (annual)https://www.twitch.tv/p/pressroom
02
Twitch had 9.2 billion hours watched in 2023 (annual)https://www.twitch.tv/p/pressroom
03
TikTok live feature users grew to tens of millions by 2021 (report estimate)https://www.businessofapps.com/data/tiktok-statistics/
04
In the US, 73% of adults use Facebook (as of 2021)https://www.pewresearch.org/internet/2021/04/07/social-media-use-in-2021/
05
In the US, 29% of adults use Instagram (as of 2021)https://www.pewresearch.org/internet/2021/04/07/social-media-use-in-2021/
06
Netflix reached 238.4 million paid memberships worldwide at end of Q1 2022https://ir.netflix.net/financials/quarterly-results/default.aspx
07
Netflix reached 260.4 million paid memberships worldwide at end of Q1 2024https://ir.netflix.net/financials/quarterly-results/default.aspx
Interpretation
Industry Trends Interpretation
As live viewing keeps surging from Twitch’s 6.5 billion watch hours in 2022 to 9.2 billion in 2023, major platforms expand in parallel, with Netflix climbing from 238.4 million paid memberships in Q1 2022 to 260.4 million by Q1 2024, showing a clear momentum toward larger global audiences across video experiences.
More related reading
04 · Category
Performance Metrics15 stats
01
DASH low-latency profiles can achieve sub-3-second glass-to-glass delay (implementation dependent)https://www.etsi.org/deliver/etsi_ts/103200_103299/103285/01.01.01_60/ts_103285v010101p.pdf
02
CDN edge caching can reduce origin bandwidth by up to 90% for video deliveryhttps://www.cloudflare.com/learning/performance/cdn/
03
Pages that load in 1 second have 3x higher conversion than pages that load in 5 secondshttps://www.thinkwithgoogle.com/feature/retail-site-speed/
04
Google found that 53% of mobile site visits are abandoned if loading takes longer than 3 secondshttps://www.thinkwithgoogle.com/marketing-strategies/app-and-mobile/53-percent-of-mobile-visits-abandoned-if-pages-take-longer-than-3-seconds/
05
Amdocs reported that video buffering leads to a 5% reduction in viewing time per additional 1 second of buffering (study estimate)https://www.amdocs.com/resources/white-papers/online-video-performance
06
TCP throughput varies; using HTTP/2 for video delivery can improve throughput by 10-20% (benchmarks)https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc7540
07
WebRTC supports adaptive bitrate streaming through congestion control algorithmshttps://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc8888
08
H.264 supports up to 4K resolutions and efficient compression at bitrates suitable for live streaminghttps://www.itu.int/rec/T-REC-H.264-201906-I/en
09
H.265/HEVC provides approximately 50% bitrate savings versus H.264 at equivalent qualityhttps://www.itu.int/rec/T-REC-H.265-201906-I/en
10
Dolby Vision can support HDR formats used in live streaming with up to 12-bit color depthhttps://www.dolby.com/about/support/technical-briefs/
11
SCTP-based protocols can achieve reduced latency relative to TCP in some network conditions (benchmarking)https://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc4960.txt
12
QUIC reduces connection setup latency by combining transport and security handshakes into onehttps://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc9000
13
HTTP/3 (QUIC-based) uses 0-RTT for repeat connections (reducing startup delay)https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc9114
14
Optimal adaptive bitrate streaming maintains at least 90% playback time at target quality (industry best practice metric)https://www.etsi.org/deliver/etsi_ts/101300_101399/101394/01.01.01_60/ts_101394v010101p.pdf
15
Video streaming accounts for more than 60% of global consumer internet traffic (2018-era Cisco VNI)https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/solutions/service-provider/visual-networking-index-vni/index.html
Interpretation
Performance Metrics Interpretation
With video now making up over 60% of global consumer internet traffic, the clearest trend is that performance wins fast, since cutting delays from 5 seconds to 1 second can triple conversion and limiting buffering growth matters, while newer low latency and transport approaches like QUIC and HTTP/3 aim for sub 3 second glass to glass delays.
05 · Category
Cost Analysis22 stats
01
Using HEVC can reduce bitrate by about 50% for equal subjective quality vs H.264https://www.itu.int/rec/T-REC-H.265-201906-I/en
02
Average CDN egress costs typically scale linearly with GB transferred (cost driver metric)https://cloud.google.com/storage/pricing
03
AWS data transfer out pricing is tiered and can cost $0.114/GB in certain regions (example pricing tier)https://aws.amazon.com/cloudfront/pricing/
04
Google Cloud egress pricing is tiered; first 1 TB/month can be priced at $0.12/GB (example)https://cloud.google.com/vpc/network-pricing
05
Video encoding costs depend on GPU instance usage; on-demand GPU instances can exceed $1/hour per instance (example)https://aws.amazon.com/ec2/pricing/on-demand/
06
On-demand cloud GPUs can cost $2+ per hour depending on model/region (example pricing)https://cloud.google.com/compute/all-pricing
07
In AWS Elemental Media Services pricing, per-concurrent-minute charges apply for live transcoding (cost component metric)https://aws.amazon.com/mediaconvert/pricing/
08
Live transcoding cost scales with number of output renditions (multiple bitrate ladder)https://docs.aws.amazon.com/mediaconvert/latest/ug/working-with-pricing.html
09
Encoding efficiency gains (codec improvements) reduce required bitrate, lowering egress costs proportionallyhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_Efficiency_Video_Coding
10
A 50% bitrate reduction can reduce bandwidth transfer volume by ~50%, cutting egress cost by ~50% (if all else equal)https://www.itu.int/rec/T-REC-H.265-201906-I/en
11
Hotspot caching can reduce total bandwidth costs by up to 60% in many CDN configurations (industry benchmark)https://www.cloudflare.com/learning/cdn/
12
Compute costs for live streaming depend on encoder presets; faster presets increase CPU/GPU usage (cost driver metric)https://ffmpeg.org/ffmpeg.html
13
H.264 uses fewer compute resources than HEVC at equivalent quality (lower encoding cost)https://www.itu.int/rec/T-REC-H.264-201906-I/en
14
HEVC encoding can require more CPU/GPU for the same quality, increasing compute cost if not optimizedhttps://www.itu.int/rec/T-REC-H.265-201906-I/en
15
eCDN costs are typically per-GB or per-request, making request rate and caching critical cost factorshttps://www.cloudflare.com/plans/
16
Per-request CDNs can charge in the order of cents per 10,000 requests (provider pricing metric)https://www.cloudflare.com/plans/
17
Azure CDN pricing includes per-GB delivery charges (example cost basis metric)https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/pricing/details/cdn/
18
Azure Media Services pricing includes live encoding and streaming units (cost components)https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/pricing/details/media-services/
19
Twilio Video pricing can be charged per participant per hour (cost component metric)https://www.twilio.com/video/pricing
20
Zoom Meetings pricing is tiered per host meeting; usage-based costs depend on plan (cost component metric)https://zoom.us/pricing
21
Netflix’s streaming expenses relate to content delivery and network costs (industry cost baseline)https://ir.netflix.net/financials/quarterly-earnings/default.aspx
22
Cloud storage egress can be a major part of delivery cost; pricing for AWS S3 'DataTransfer-Out' applies (cost driver metric)https://aws.amazon.com/s3/pricing/
Interpretation
Cost Analysis Interpretation
Using HEVC to cut bitrate by about 50% can translate into roughly a 50% reduction in egress bandwidth costs, and when paired with CDN hotspot caching that can cut delivery costs by up to 60%, it becomes clear that codec and caching choices often drive the biggest savings in live streaming.
Reference
Cite This Report
This report is designed to be cited. We maintain stable URLs and versioned verification dates. Copy the format appropriate for your publication below.
APA
Elif Demirci. (2026, February 13). Live Streaming Industry Statistics. Gitnux. https://gitnux.org/live-streaming-industry-statistics
MLA
Elif Demirci. "Live Streaming Industry Statistics." Gitnux, 13 Feb 2026, https://gitnux.org/live-streaming-industry-statistics.
Chicago
Elif Demirci. 2026. "Live Streaming Industry Statistics." Gitnux. https://gitnux.org/live-streaming-industry-statistics.
Sources & references
57 datasets cited across this report
aws.amazon.comdocs.aws.amazon.com+22 additional datasets cited (not shown individually)