(Yicai Global) May 18 -- China’s live-streaming sector is stabilizing amid fierce competition with overseas players such as Instagram and YouTube after two years of spectacular growth, according to the China Association of Performing Arts.

The sector had 23 financing deals worth more than CNY6.2 billion (USD964.5 million) last year, the lowest since 2016, the association said in a report published today.

Domestic platforms facing intensifying competition with foreign rivals, which also include Amazon's Twitch, according to the report. ByteDance's TikTok and others that operate overseas need to adapt to the habits of their foreign users and meet the security requirements of the countries they do business in. 

There were more 130 million accounts belonging to live-streaming hosts in China as of December, the report said. On the busiest day, 43,000 new performers registered with 23 platforms.

Some 617 million people watched live-streamed shows last year, or more than 62 percent of all Chinese netizens. Nearly 63 percent of them followed e-commerce live-streamers. More than a third viewed live-streamed events for one or two hours a day, while nearly 27 percent watched for 30 minutes to an hour.

Editor: Emmi Laine, Xiao Yi