Spotify reaches 50 million paid subscribers, leaving Apple Music to play catch-up

Why it matters to you

This latest milestone shows Apple Music and other rivals still have some serious work to do to take the music streaming crown from Spotify.

Spotify is continuing to persuade music fans to hand over cold, hard cash in exchange for access to a massive library of tracks.

The streaming giant on Thursday revealed it now has 50 million paying subscribers, an increase of 10 million in five months.

Spotify announced the news in a short and sweet tweet thanking its growing army of paying subscribers for their loyalty.

Thank you to our 50 million subscribers. #Spotify50 pic.twitter.com/eXkOV71bwu

— Spotify (@Spotify) March 2, 2017

Continuing to build up its user base at a steady rate, Spotify took six months to grow from 30 million to 40 million users, and nine months to increase from 20 million to 30 million.

Time to achieve @Spotify paying subs

0 ~> 10M = 4 yrs
10 ~> 20M = 13 months
20 ~> 30M = 9 mnths
30 ~> 40M = 6 mnths
40 ~> 50M = 5 mnths

— Rich Greenfield (@RichBTIG) March 2, 2017

Although a few music streaming outfits have fallen by the wayside in the face of stiffening competition, there are still plenty of big-hitters battling it out in the cut-throat market. While Spotify still leads the pack, others, Apple among them, are continuing to make a play for users.

The Cupertino company’s Apple Music streaming service, which launched in June 2015, reached 20 million paying subscribers toward the end of last year. Spotify and Apple both charge users $10 a month for access to their enormous libraries of music. They also offer identical deals for students ($5 a month) and families ($15 a month). However, whereas Spotify offers a free tier with ads and several limitations, Apple Music has no free offering.

More: Spotify vs. Apple Music — which service is the streaming king?

With 100 million monthly active users overall, Spotify is continuing to work to convert non-paying users to its paid plan in order to boost revenue. Talk of an IPO also continues, though the latest is that the company may hold off till 2018 to give it more time to improve its balance sheet and alter its business model to boost revenue.