SCHOOL ASSIGNMENT

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A Market Analysis for
(Twitch Interactive)
(John Bautista)
Full Sail University
Project & Portfolio II: Business and Marketing
(26 September 2021)

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EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
This analysis report looks at the SWOT analysis of Twitch interactive and provides and
identifies its two main competitors. The report has an overview of the company and some
information on its parent company, Amazon. The report includes recommendations on how
Twitch could increase its market share and position as the live streaming leader as well as reduce
its threats and weaknesses to move the brand forward.

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OBJECTIVE
Provide analysis of Twitch Interactive’s biggest competitors, YouTube Gaming and
Facebook Gaming and provide recommendations that will improve Twitch’s standing as the
current livestreaming leader in gaming and esports.
RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
A great deal of the information utilized for the research was found externally from
articles, websites, and blogs. Internal information was found via blogs for each platform, Twitch,
Facebook, and YouTube. The most critical data analyzed was from the previous quarter to the
end of the preceding quarter. Additional data ranged from the last 5 years to the current year. We
did not go back further because Twitch has grown the most in the last 4 years and YouTube
Gaming and Facebook Gaming have grown in the last 3 years.
RESEARCH AND KEY FINDINGS
Twitch Interactive is a platform that offers live streaming of cooking, live discussions,
music, gaming, arts & crafts, and more. It was acquired by Amazon and generates $228 million a
year. Twitch averages around 20 million daily active users. The top 10 streamers on the platform

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generate over 97 million followers on the platform and have earned a cumulative total of $9.6
million as of 2020. Twitch’s parent company, Amazon, has a net income of $29.43B as of June
30, 2021. The target market for Twitch is male aged 18 - 34.
Twitch’s strengths are that it was the first to market as a live streaming platform that
focused on gaming. Being first to market gave Twitch a much higher percentage of the market
share despite having competitors. Additionally, most brands and sponsors want to associate their
products and brands with Twitch over other platforms because it reaches more viewers and has
more broadcasters.
Some of Twitch’s weaknesses are that there has been a significant increase of bot or fake
accounts utilized for targeted harassment that has continued to drive users to other platforms.
There has been a constant lack of discoverability on the platform that has provided the
competition a blueprint of what to improve to avoid the same mistakes. With legacy streamers
that generate larger portions of revenue and viewership for Twitch leaving for other platforms, it
has lost some of its market share.
Twitch does have opportunities that it can take advantage of to widen its lead as the
frontrunner. Twitch can market its Video on Demand (VOD) service that is currently being

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underutilized. Twitch can develop and implement a discoverability algorithm like what YouTube
did for its VOD system which increased its viewer base significantly. Twitch can continue to
improve and promote its live streaming capabilities over its competitors to drive more streamers
to the platform.
With all these opportunities, there are still a few threats Twitch must face. There are two
major competitors that are making improvements to their live streaming platforms which are
reducing the market share Twitch maintains. These two main competitors are YouTube Gaming
and Facebook Gaming. Platforms other than YouTube and Facebook are continuing to emerge
which further increases the competition Twitch must compete against. Twitch not analyzing or
regarding what the competition is doing, in terms of progress, is very important and is to its
detriment.
CONCLUSIONS

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While Twitch maintains a very comfortable and large portion of the market share, it has
two viable and growing competitors. YouTube Gaming and Facebook Gaming are backed by
two very large tech companies that are making subtle improvements to their live streaming
platforms. Twitch does offer a superior product but has not made noticeable improvements to the
website and it has begun to cost them viewers as well as top tier broadcasters who have opted for
the competition. Twitch is the industry leader and does maintain a healthy position. From the
competitor profiles, they can make large incremental changes that will continue to support its
position now and into the future.
RECOMMENDATIONS
I have identified three recommendations that will benefit Twitch in being the continued
industry leader for years to come.
Completing and updating Competitor Profiles on YouTube Gaming and Facebook
Gaming to include SWOT AND STEEPLE analysis is a vital and necessary step. This must be
done quarterly to sustain forward progress. Twitch must highlight the most impactful strengths
and weaknesses for each platform with reasons why and, if identifiable, steps the competition has
taken to sustain or improve the identified areas. Doing this will provide Twitch the blueprint on
how to recreate the same steps or improve upon them when the weaknesses have been identified.
Next is to identify trends across streaming categories and the top 1% of channels/
streamers. These trends should include average hours watched, games played, or categories
tagged, most active hours, highest and lowest concurrent viewers, and comparisons of viewers
during live events per platform. This is key information to utilize when crafting campaigns that

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take advantage of these areas to cast the largest net for conversions of viewers to subscribers and
beginner broadcasters to brand ambassadors.
Lastly, identify the biggest threats and weaknesses, reasons why, most vs. least expensive
methods to improve or reduce areas of weaknesses and threats as well as shortest vs. longest
timeframe for implementation. If Twitch cannot identify and address effectively it biggest threats
and weaknesses it will continue to lose market share and will have a much larger loss than a
smaller, shorter loss which most companies inevitably face. By identifying these areas, Twitch
will reduce the threats, improve the weaknesses, capitalize on the opportunities and sustain its
strengths.

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REFERENCES
Grayson, N. (2021, September 10). Why top streamers are leaving Twitch. Washington Post.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/video-games/2021/09/10/twitch-youtube-drlupo-
timthetatman-leave-why/
Malip, S. (2021, June 12). Best Twitch Alternatives in 2021 - Totally Worth it!
GAMESTYLE.NET. https://www.gamestyle.net/best-twitch-alternatives/
May, E. (2021, July 27). Streamlabs and Stream Hatchet Q2 Live Streaming Industry Report.
Streamlabs. https://streamlabs.com/content-hub/post/streamlabs-and-stream-hatchet-q2-
live-streaming-industry-report
Mediakix. (2019, July 26). Twitch Stats: 11 Twitch.tv Gaming Statistics Marketers Should
Know. Mediakix. https://mediakix.com/blog/top-twitch-statistics-live-streaming-game-
platform/
Patterson, C. (2021, September 2). Why are streamers leaving Twitch for YouTube? For one
obvious reason. Dexerto. https://www.dexerto.com/entertainment/why-are-streamers-
leaving-twitch-for-youtube-for-one-obvious-reason-1644377/
Zablotna, A. (2021, May 25). Twitch vs YouTube vs Facebook Gaming: which is the best for
streaming? InSTREAMLY. https://instreamly.com/streamers/streaming-tips/twitch-vs-
youtube-vs-facebook-gaming-which-is-the-best-platform-for-game-streaming/)
IMAGES
Yaden, J. (2020, October 25). What is Twitch? Digital Trends; Digital Trends.
https://www.digitaltrends.com/gaming/what-is-twitch/
Gusakov, D. (2021, July 6). Twitch vs Youtube Gaming. Comparison of top streaming platforms.
Awario Blog. https://awario.com/blog/twitch-vs-youtube-gaming-who-s-the-boss/

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Malip, S. (2021, June 12). Best Twitch Alternatives in 2021 - Totally Worth it!
GAMESTYLE.NET. https://www.gamestyle.net/best-twitch-alternatives/