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 2023
02
2.5 billion people watched video online in 2020
03
66% of viewers say they are more likely to trust a brand that offers live streaming
04
17% of consumers bought products after watching live videos in the past 12 months
05
58% of consumers watch live streams at least once per month
06
61% of people watch live sports online at least once a week
07
54% of respondents watched a live stream in the past month
08
49% of consumers watched live video on social media in 2021
09
90% of consumers say video is helpful during the buying process
10
81% of organizations use video for marketing
11
75% of consumers expect companies to produce online videos at a regular cadence
12
32% of marketers say live video is the fastest-growing type of video content
13
31% of consumers want to see more live video from brands
14
20% year-over-year increase in Twitch monthly active users in 2021
15
Twitch reached 140.4 million monthly active users in 2020
16
Twitch had 2.7 billion hours watched in Q4 2019
17
YouTube Live streams and premieres reached 2 billion watch hours in 2020
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 2021
02
Live streaming market size of $104.8 billion by 2028
03
Global video streaming market size of $62.4 billion in 2022
04
Video streaming market size projected to reach $254.6 billion by 2030
05
Live streaming software market projected to reach $2.1 billion by 2027
06
Live streaming services revenue expected to grow at a CAGR of ~25% during 2020-2026
07
Online video advertising spend globally was $37.9 billion in 2020
08
Online video advertising spend globally was $46.4 billion in 2021
09
Online video ad spend globally forecast to reach $65.8 billion in 2023
10
Twitch ad revenue in 2021 estimated at $1.2 billion
11
Twitch ad revenue estimated at $2.0 billion in 2023
12
Netflix revenue was $25.0 billion in Q1 2022 (streaming industry baseline)
13
Live sports streaming audience revenue is projected to reach $27.4 billion by 2027
14
Live sports streaming market is forecast to grow at a CAGR of 20.3% from 2021 to 2026
15
Live streaming technology market size estimated at $4.2 billion in 2020
16
Interactive live streaming market projected to reach $20.3 billion by 2025
17
Interactive live streaming market projected CAGR 39.0% (2019-2025)
18
Global esports market size was $1.1 billion in 2018 and projected $1.8 billion by 2020
19
Global esports market size forecast to reach $1.62 billion in 2024
20
Esports audience worldwide forecast at 474 million in 2024
21
Global gaming audience forecast at 3.37 billion in 2023
22
Esports viewers forecast to grow to 600 million by 2025
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)
02
Twitch had 9.2 billion hours watched in 2023 (annual)
03
TikTok live feature users grew to tens of millions by 2021 (report estimate)
04
In the US, 73% of adults use Facebook (as of 2021)
05
In the US, 29% of adults use Instagram (as of 2021)
06
Netflix reached 238.4 million paid memberships worldwide at end of Q1 2022
07
Netflix reached 260.4 million paid memberships worldwide at end of Q1 2024
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)
02
CDN edge caching can reduce origin bandwidth by up to 90% for video delivery
03
Pages that load in 1 second have 3x higher conversion than pages that load in 5 seconds
04
Google found that 53% of mobile site visits are abandoned if loading takes 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)
06
TCP throughput varies; using HTTP/2 for video delivery can improve throughput by 10-20% (benchmarks)
07
WebRTC supports adaptive bitrate streaming through congestion control algorithms
08
H.264 supports up to 4K resolutions and efficient compression at bitrates suitable for live streaming
09
H.265/HEVC provides approximately 50% bitrate savings versus H.264 at equivalent quality
10
Dolby Vision can support HDR formats used in live streaming with up to 12-bit color depth
11
SCTP-based protocols can achieve reduced latency relative to TCP in some network conditions (benchmarking)
12
QUIC reduces connection setup latency by combining transport and security handshakes into one
13
HTTP/3 (QUIC-based) uses 0-RTT for repeat connections (reducing startup delay)
14
Optimal adaptive bitrate streaming maintains at least 90% playback time at target quality (industry best practice metric)
15
Video streaming accounts for more than 60% of global consumer internet traffic (2018-era Cisco VNI)
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.264
02
Average CDN egress costs typically scale linearly with GB transferred (cost driver metric)
03
AWS data transfer out pricing is tiered and can cost $0.114/GB in certain regions (example pricing tier)
04
Google Cloud egress pricing is tiered; first 1 TB/month can be priced at $0.12/GB (example)
05
Video encoding costs depend on GPU instance usage; on-demand GPU instances can exceed $1/hour per instance (example)
06
On-demand cloud GPUs can cost $2+ per hour depending on model/region (example pricing)
07
In AWS Elemental Media Services pricing, per-concurrent-minute charges apply for live transcoding (cost component metric)
08
Live transcoding cost scales with number of output renditions (multiple bitrate ladder)
09
Encoding efficiency gains (codec improvements) reduce required bitrate, lowering egress costs proportionally
10
A 50% bitrate reduction can reduce bandwidth transfer volume by ~50%, cutting egress cost by ~50% (if all else equal)
11
Hotspot caching can reduce total bandwidth costs by up to 60% in many CDN configurations (industry benchmark)
12
Compute costs for live streaming depend on encoder presets; faster presets increase CPU/GPU usage (cost driver metric)
13
H.264 uses fewer compute resources than HEVC at equivalent quality (lower encoding cost)
14
HEVC encoding can require more CPU/GPU for the same quality, increasing compute cost if not optimized
15
eCDN costs are typically per-GB or per-request, making request rate and caching critical cost factors
16
Per-request CDNs can charge in the order of cents per 10,000 requests (provider pricing metric)
17
Azure CDN pricing includes per-GB delivery charges (example cost basis metric)
18
Azure Media Services pricing includes live encoding and streaming units (cost components)
19
Twilio Video pricing can be charged per participant per hour (cost component metric)
20
Zoom Meetings pricing is tiered per host meeting; usage-based costs depend on plan (cost component metric)
21
Netflix’s streaming expenses relate to content delivery and network costs (industry cost baseline)
22
Cloud storage egress can be a major part of delivery cost; pricing for AWS S3 'DataTransfer-Out' applies (cost driver metric)
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 · attribution is report-level
aws.amazon.comdocs.aws.amazon.com+22 additional datasets cited (not shown individually)