In total Spotify is now claiming that they have 170 million active users, which they say is a 30% increase from the previous year. In case it wasn’t obvious, the remaining users are those who are using the company’s free tier, which we guess overall is still very impressive. This is versus Spotify’s competitors, namely Apple Music who recently revealed that they had hit 40 million subscribers.
Earlier this year there was a report that Apple could potentially overtake Spotify by this summer, as it was calculated that Apple Music’s subscriber base was growing at a rapid rate of about 5% per month. However given that Apple is now 35 million subscribers behind, it doesn’t seem particularly likely.
Not to mention that Spotify has also been taking steps to improve their services and offerings, such as recently launching an improved free tier that gives users more control over on-demand playback. There have also been rumors suggesting that Spotify could potentially unveil new hardware, such as their own smart speakers which could help them gain more subscribers.