Who holds gaming ad market share? Twitch, YouTube, Kick

Kick held 14.4% of tracked gaming-livestream hours in Q1 2026, yet it had no conventional sellable ad inventory as of mid-2026. YouTube, meanwhile, can be assigned roughly 25% or 47% of livestream viewing depending on whether the denominator covers gaming only or all livestream content. Those figures describe audience consumption—not a comparable split of advertising dollars.

For an H2 2026 media plan, the direct answer is that no credible public dataset provides a like-for-like Twitch, YouTube Gaming, and Kick advertising-revenue share. Twitch remains the largest gaming-livestream audience, YouTube offers the strongest scalable advertising route, and Kick's growing audience cannot yet be converted into a standard platform-media allocation.

Gaming livestream market-share scorecard

Last reviewed August 27, 2026. The watch-time figures below cover gaming livestreaming in Q1 2026. They were originally attributed to Stream Hatchet's Q1 2026 Live-Streaming Trends Report and are available here through a secondary capture because the primary report is paywalled.[1]

This scorecard does not declare an ad-dollar winner by percentage because the required inputs are not public on a comparable basis. A defensible calculation would need advertising revenue for the same period, geography, content scope, and revenue definition from all three companies. Instead, the available figures mix quarterly viewing, annual platform-wide advertising revenue, estimated total revenue, and an inferred absence of advertising revenue.

The percentage changes when the denominator changes

The phrase “market share” can refer to at least four different measurements in this category: share of hours watched, share of advertising impressions, share of advertising revenue, or share of total platform revenue. Only the first is available across Twitch, YouTube Gaming, and Kick with a reasonably consistent gaming-specific scope in the cited Q1 dataset.

Scope alone can nearly double the apparent YouTube figure. Gaming-only tracking placed YouTube Gaming at 25.1% of hours in Q1 2026.[1] A separate figure attributed to The Next Web put YouTube at about 47% of all global livestream hours.[3] The latter can include livestream content well beyond gaming, so it cannot replace the gaming-only percentage in a gaming media plan.

A usable percentage therefore needs five labels beside it: date, denominator, content scope, revenue type, and source. Without them, 51.3% may be mistaken for Twitch's share of advertising revenue, 25.1% may be compared with an all-livestream YouTube figure, and Kick's 14.4% may be entered into a budget model even though the corresponding inventory cannot be bought.

The audience shift predates the Q1 2026 snapshot

Full-year 2025 data points in the same direction. A secondary capture of Streams Charts reporting put Twitch at 19.2 billion hours and 54% share, down 10% year over year. YouTube Gaming reached 8.8 billion hours and 24% share, up 12%, while Kick reached 4.5 billion hours and 11%, up 131%.[2]

Twitch was the only one of the three to lose hours year over year in that dataset, but it still finished 2025 with more than twice YouTube Gaming's hours and more than four times Kick's. Q1 2026 continued the same broad pattern: Twitch remained dominant but contracted, while both challengers grew.[1][2]

That trend matters for audience planning, competitive monitoring, creator partnerships, and future negotiating leverage. It still does not show that ad dollars moved in the same proportions. Each platform exposes a different commercial surface to a buyer.

Twitch: the largest gaming audience, with mixed revenue underneath it

Twitch's 51.3% Q1 share is the clearest evidence of audience leadership in gaming livestreaming.[1] It is not evidence that Twitch receives the same share of gaming-livestream advertising revenue. Twitch combines advertising with subscriptions and Bits, and Amazon does not publish the platform-level breakdown needed to isolate those categories.

One third-party estimate places Twitch's annual revenue near $3 billion.[4] That estimate is useful only as an indication of possible overall business scale. It is not company-disclosed revenue, it does not isolate advertising, and it does not create a comparable denominator against YouTube Gaming or Kick.

For buying purposes, Twitch has a real advantage over Kick: advertising inventory exists. Its disadvantage relative to a clean market-share analysis is disclosure. A planner can spend against Twitch audiences, but cannot responsibly use the public materials here to state what percentage of the three-platform ad market Twitch controls.

YouTube Gaming: fewer gaming hours, stronger advertising infrastructure

YouTube Gaming's Q1 2026 watch-time share was less than half Twitch's, at 25.1% versus 51.3%.[1] That audience comparison understates the practical difference between their advertising systems. YouTube sits inside a much larger advertising business, giving buyers a scalable paid route even when the gaming-livestream subset is not separately disclosed.

The cited secondary material attributes $40.4 billion in 2025 YouTube advertising revenue to Alphabet.[1] The figure demonstrates the scale of YouTube's platform-wide advertising operation; it does not measure YouTube Gaming, livestreams, gaming advertisers, or any combination of those categories. Because the accessible figure is secondhand in the supplied evidence, it should be reconciled with Alphabet's investor materials before it enters a financial model.

Calling YouTube the advertising leader among these services is therefore a judgment about infrastructure and buyability, not a calculated gaming-livestream revenue share. The public numbers support a stronger allocation route, but not a claim such as “YouTube holds X% of gaming streaming ad dollars.”

Kick: meaningful attention without standard paid inventory

Kick's growth is large enough to monitor. It rose 131% year over year to 4.5 billion hours in 2025, then reached 1.27 billion hours and 14.4% of gaming-livestream viewing in Q1 2026.[1][2] Those results make it an audience competitor; they do not automatically make it a media vendor.

The reviewed mid-2026 evidence described Kick ads as still being tested and did not document a sellable rate card, conventional inventory, or self-serve portal.[1] Consequently, describing Kick's standard platform-ad share as near zero is a synthesis of product availability, not a disclosed revenue result. It should always be labeled “editorial inference” rather than printed as a measured percentage.

Kick may still enter a plan through individually evaluated creator or platform partnerships. Those arrangements belong in a separate budget line with their own deliverables, pricing, measurement, and brand controls. They are not interchangeable with repeatable advertising inventory, and their existence would not establish a platform-wide ad-market share.

Gaming's wider attention gap does not solve the platform calculation

The mismatch between gaming attention and advertising investment extends beyond these three services. eMarketer estimated US game advertising revenue at about $9.21 billion in 2026, equal to 2.3% of US digital advertising spending.[5][6] Its forecast has game-ad revenue approaching $10 billion by 2029 while its share of digital spending declines toward 2%.[6]

Dentsu's 2025 gaming context counted 3.4 billion gamers and 8.9 billion livestream hours watched in Q1 2025, while gaming received less than 5% of worldwide media investment.[7] That comparison supports the broader observation that investment trails attention. It does not reveal how advertising dollars divide among Twitch, YouTube Gaming, and Kick.

Neither dataset should be used as a substitute denominator. US game advertising includes formats and environments beyond livestream platforms, while worldwide media investment introduces a different geography and market definition. Both are planning context, not ingredients for a three-platform share calculation.

H2 2026 decision rule

Allocate according to accessible inventory and campaign requirements, then use watch-time share to judge audience coverage—not to dictate spend mechanically. Twitch remains the first platform to assess when the objective requires the largest gaming-livestream audience. YouTube Gaming deserves consideration when scale, established advertising access, and a broader video ecosystem matter more than gaming-only watch-time leadership.

Keep Kick in audience monitoring and, where appropriate, a separately governed partnership budget until it offers a documented sellable ad product. Do not manufacture a precise three-way split from 51.3%, 25.1%, and 14.4%: those are Q1 gaming watch-time shares, and only two of the three platforms currently provide conventional media access.

References

1. Twitch vs YouTube Gaming vs Kick 2025: Market Share, Viewers & Platform Data, Beta Ads
2. YouTube vs Twitch vs Kick: Where Should You Stream in 2026?, LiveReacting
3. YouTube Now Pauses Ads to Protect the Vibe, Beta Ads
4. Twitch vs Kick: Revenue, Reach, & Which Platform Is For You?, Castr
5. Game ad revenues grow, but spending falls behind consumer attention, eMarketer
6. FAQ on video game advertising: Market size, format analysis, and how to find players in 2026, eMarketer
7. Dentsu 2025 Gaming Trends Report: What It Actually Means for Nordic Twitch Advertising, Beta Ads