Facebook Gaming’s increasing popularity has done extremely well to catch up with established competitors and is now one of the fastest rising streaming platforms globally. According to data presented by Safe Betting Sites, Facebook Gaming experienced a 91% YoY increase in Q1 2021 after viewership surpassed 1B hours for the first time in a quarter.
FB.GG Records Over 1B Hours Watched In A Quarter
Facebook Gaming(FB.GG) was launched in 2018 as the social network’s platform for gaming live streams where gamers and fans interact. When FB.GG was first launched, it had the unenviable task of entering a market that already had established platforms such as Twitch and Youtube Gaming, Nevertheless, FB.GG found almost immediate success and is now gaining ground on its main competitors.
In the first quarter of 2021, FB.GG logged a total of 1,057B hours watched of streaming content on the platform, the first time it crossed the billion-hour mark for a quarter. Q1 2021’s figures are also a 91% YoY increase from Q1 2020 when total hours watched was just at 554M.
Viewership in the first quarter of 2021 also increased by 156 million hours compared to the previous quarter giving it a 17% QoQ increase from Q4 2020. In terms of average concurrent viewers, FB.GG recorded 480K in Q1 2021, compared to just 408K the previous quarter – a 20% QoQ increase. The figure is also a 91% YoY increase from 2020 Q1’s 256K average concurrent viewer count.
Streaming on FB.GG On the Rise
The number of video game content streamed on the platform is also well on the rise. An estimated total of 19.5M hours was streamed on FB.GG in Q1 2021, an increase of about 5 million hours compared to the previous quarter for a 34.5% QoQ increase. Even more remarkably, the figure from the first quarter of 2021 is almost a 300% YoY increase compared to the figure in Q1 2020.
The number of unique channels on the platform also increased significantly in the first quarter of 2021 reaching an all-time high of 1.56M compared to 1.16M the previous quarter – a 32.8% QoQ increase.
Facebook Gaming To Surpass YouTube Gaming in 2021
Despite its young age relative to its competitors, Facebook Gaming has firmly established itself as one of the streaming industry’s leading platforms.
Rex Pascual, Esports editor at Safe Betting Sites commented;
“Facebook Gaming has grown by leaps and bounds since its launch in 2018. The strength of the FB brand and network combined with the lockdowns of the pandemic stricken 2020, gave the platform the ability to grow rapidly in a short amount of time. Based on the current figures from Q1 2021, FB.GG looks set to overtake YouTube Gaming as Twitch’s closest rival within the calendar year.”
