Despite increased competition from the likes of Apple, Inc., streaming music service provider Spotify AB shows no signs of slowing down with Chief Executive Officer Daniel Ek announcing in a tweet that the company now has 30 million paid subscribers.

The number itself is up 10 million from the 20 million paid subscribers Spotify said it had in June 2015, just prior to the launch of Apple Music.

During that period, Apple Music grew to some 10 million subscribers (including trial subscribers), while Tidal, another streaming service has grown to 2.5 million users, up 1.5 million users after gaining exclusive rights to the release of Kanye West’s latest album.

Spotify was named the most popular music streaming service globally in an App Annie report in December, and last week it was revealed that streaming music services are now the largest source of revenue for artists and record companies in the United States.

Challenge

The new numbers come despite Spotify missing out on releases from major artists like Adele, Coldplay, Drake, Future, Taylor Swift Rihanna, The 1975, and Kanye West; conversely though Apple Music, in particular, hasn’t been able to fully capitalize on their ability to land exclusive deals, probably at least in part due to the interface of the service being widely panned in the media.

Spotify’s paid subscriber growth projectory is clearly a positive one in light of the competition, but the company, to its credit, has not been resting on its laurels, and has instead continued to innovate, including the launch of its Fresh Music feature recently, and its decision to switch to the Google Cloud to reduce ongoing costs.

The good news for Spotify is that the overall market continues to grow, with some predicting the market could grow to $2.7 billion by 2019, a compounded annual growth rate (CAGR) of 20.5 percent per year.

Even if Apple eventually improves Apple Music there may not be a lot of cannibalism between services as the overall size of the pie continues to grow, meaning that Spotify looks well set to continue growing over the next 3-4 years.

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