May 6, 2021

The mobile app for live streaming service Twitch was downloaded 22 million times globally in Q1 2021, according to a new blog post from respected analytics platform Sensor Tower.

This is an increase of 62% from the same quarter in the prior year, when the app was downloaded 13.6 million times.

Monthly Active Users (MAUs) for March 2021 was also up 69% compared to March 2020, which in itself Sensor Tower reports was a record year for the streaming platform.

In 2020, the app saw approximately 80.6m global installs, up 134% from 34.5 million in 2019.

The US remains Twitch’s largest market for installs. In Q1 2021, the app saw 5 million installs there, up 61% from slightly more than 3 million in Q1 2020.

Sensor Tower also found that Twitch saw the most growth in India’s app stores in 2020, climbing 588% year-over-year to 2.2 million from 320,000 in 2019.

In the blog post, Sensor Tower says that Twitch adoption is “still going strong in early 2021” as consumers “continue to  turn to their mobile devices for entertainment during the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic”.

While Twitch first grew in popularity through its gaming category, in November, Tracy Chan, Twitch’s VP, Head of Music who joined the company from Spotify, tweeted that “Music is no longer a game on Twitch, it’s a full blown category!”

Since then, Twitch has launched a personalized Music Directory on its platform, which at the time it called the “home to musical artists and all of the best live performances, music production, and special events”.

In February, the platform also partnered with independent music distributor DistroKid to offer qualifying DistroKid members the opportunity to gain access to the Twitch Affiliate Program.