Panda TV’s demise makes way for gaming giant Tencent to dominate live streaming too

  • China is home to the world’s biggest live streaming user base, with industry revenue expected to grow to US$16.5 billion by 2022 from 2017’s US$5.5 billion

Showgirls promote Panda TV at China’s biggest gaming show. Photo: Zheping Huang

Last August, Wang Sicong showed up on his live streaming network Panda TV to play a game of League of Legends for his e-sports team. The flamboyant son of Wang Jianlin, one of China's richest men, did not do great, but his team won. The professional match ended up getting a peak of 50 million concurrent viewers, according to Panda, setting a record for the platform.

To give some context, the record for an individual’s live stream on US-based Twitch was 628,000 concurrent viewers, when Fortnite pro Ninja played alongside rap star Drake in March last year.

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