Kick Co-Founder Critiques Twitch’s Viewership Claims

Bijan Tehrani, co-founder of Kick, recently took a jab at Twitch after highlighting how his platform briefly surpassed its competitor in a significant demographic.

Since its inception, Kick has aimed to outshine Twitch and attract some of the streaming giant’s key personalities.

A number of high-profile streamers have made their way to Kick, including xQc, Amouranth, NICKMERCS, and even chess sensation GM Hikaru.

While the platform has recently scaled back on recruiting new creators, it has gained traction in various other aspects.

On October 28, Tehrani shared a screenshot from the analytics website KickvsTwitch, indicating that Kick had outpaced Twitch in Spanish-speaking viewership over the past week.

The @WestCOL effect ✅ pic.twitter.com/AzCZab74Ne

— Bijan Tehrani (@BijanTehrani) October 28, 2024

Tehrani referred to “The WestCol effect,”alluding to the Colombian streamer who shattered Adin Ross’s viewership record set during a stream with former President Donald Trump.

Before that, on October 20, WestCol hosted a fight event named Stream Fighters 3 that attracted an astonishing 1 million viewers.

“That’s insane,” one user commented. “I’m curious what the executives are saying about this.”

Tehrani responded, suggesting, “I think they’ve got bigger issues.”

I think they got bigger problems 🫢

— Bijan Tehrani (@BijanTehrani) October 28, 2024

This remark likely pointed to a series of Twitch controversies from October, including an apology issued by the platform for inadvertently preventing Israeli and Palestinian users from creating new accounts.

The month also witnessed a remarkable 40% increase in signups on Kick, as dissatisfaction grew among users regarding Twitch’s policies concerning VTuber attire, which imposed restrictions on how much creators could reveal.

In light of the backlash, Rumble’s CEO Chris Pavlovski even predicted that Amazon might shut down or sell Twitch within a two-year span.

As the competition in streaming intensifies, it remains to be seen whether Twitch will recover or if Kick can continue to build on this momentum into 2025, aiming for a larger share of the viewership market that Twitch has long controlled.

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