Spotify now has over 40 million subscribers, up by 10 million in six months

After announcing in March that it had 30 million subscribers, Spotify now says that that number has already grown to 40 million, maintaining a healthy lead over Apple Music's 17 million subscribers.

Andy Weir Senior News Editor Neowin @gcaweir · Sep 15, 2016 05:56 EDT · Hot! with 33 comments

In June 2015, music streaming service Spotify announced that it had over 20 million paying subscribers. Earlier this year, in March, the company said that that number had grown to over 30 million.

Now, Spotify CEO Daniel Ek has revealed that over 40 million of its users pay for subscriptions - a remarkable increase of 10 million (around 33%) in just under six months.

That means that Spotify is maintaining a strong lead over Apple Music. When Apple launched its 'revolutionary' music service last year, many believed that the strength of its iTunes platform would allow it to quickly breeze past its more established streaming rival.

But Apple Music isn't growing anywhere near as quickly as some expected it would. After reaching 13 million subscribers in late April, Apple announced last week at the iPhone 7 launch event that its music service had grown to 17 million paying users.

Source: Daniel Ek (@eldsjal) via BGR