Spotify hits 40 million paid subscriber milestone, outpacing Apple Music’s growth

Spotify today confirmed it has reached the 40 million paid subscriber milestone.

In a tweet shared by Spotify’s official Twitter account today, the company’s CEO and Founder Daniel Ek hinted that the service has hit the 40 million subscriber milestone. A Spotify spokesperson later confirmed the stat to 9to5Mac. 

The company last announced a major subscriber milestone in March of this year when it confirmed the service was at 30 million paying subscribers. While Spotify has yet to release an official statement confirming the 40 million subscriber milestone, a company spokesperson confirmed the number via email. Spotify CEO Daniel Ek’s tweet hinting at the achievement simply read, “40 is the new 30. Million.”

Compare Spotify’s numbers with the 17 million subscribers that Apple announced for Apple Music just this month during its iPhone 7 event. That’s up 4 million from the 13 million it reported back in April.

That means Spotify grew approximately 10 million paid subscribers in the last five months, while Apple only managed to grab around 4 million new paid subs.

Back in June, reports noted that Spotify had reached 100 million users total including those on free tiers, but it’s unclear if that number too has increased alongside the new paid subscriber number shared today.

40 is the new 30.
Million. 😄

— Daniel Ek (@eldsjal) September 14, 2016