When Amazon purchased live streaming website Twitch back in 2014, they had lofty goals – not only for the growth of the site, but for the revenue it brought in through advertisements. In 2018, live streaming was just starting to pick up steam as Fortnite became the dominant force it is today. So, it’s fair to assume Amazon’s monetary goals for Twitch went beyond what they saw during this stride. However, according to a report, the site’s ad revenue is well below what Amazon expected. On the other hand, websites like YouTuber reportedly double or even triple Twitch’s yearly ad revenue.
Twitch not meeting Amazon’s goals
In 2018, no other website was even remotely close to Twitch in terms of popularity. YouTube was, of course, a staple for the gaming community, but its live streaming services couldn’t match Twitch. With the likes of Tyler “Ninja” Blevins and Guy “DrDisrespect” Beahm dominating the scene, the site looked unstoppable.
However, it appears this dominance failed to translate to ad revenue success. Reportedly, Twitch only pulled in $230 million in ad revenue during 2018, an extremely low figure. For 2019, a projection estimated that it would earn around $300 million.
Still, Twitch and Amazon were expecting a figure much higher than $300 million, with hopes that the site could break $500 million. That lofty figure isn’t even the peak of what they expected, though, as the site projected $1 billion in ad revenue by 2020.
This has supposedly not even come close to happening. Twitch is set to make more off its subscription services than ad revenue, with the two combining for $1 billion. To compare, YouTube reportedly makes over $1 billion in ad revenue alone every year.
Amazon paid nearly $1 billion for Twitch in 2014, getting in on the ground floor for live streaming websites. While Twitch is clearly the dominant website in the market, it appears they’ll need to find a way to bring in more ad revenue to please their superiors.
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