Spotify closing in on 30 Mil Paying Subs

Spotify is apparently fast closing in on 30 million paying subscribers.

The streaming leader hit 28 million at the end of 2015, according to the Financial Times.

The service last released its official active user number last June, reporting it had reached 75 million active users, of which 20 million were paying subscribers.

Spotify told TMN its official paying subscriber number is still 20 million.

The Financial Times said it added another 8 million by December and in the next three months will hit the 30 million mark.

While the industry has its money on a 100 million active user benchmark very soon, Spotify is still ahead of its competitors. Newcomer Apple Music has 11 million subscribers and unlike Spotify, has no free tier. Deezer is available in over 180 countries with 6 million subscribers and 16 million monthly active users. Meanwhile, Jay-Z’s paid-tier only platform Tidal announced last October that it had hit the 1 million subscribers mark – and 45% of them had opted for the higher $19.95 hi-fi rate.

In June Spotify reported its free-to-premium conversion rate was 26.7%, a figure that’s bound to have increased if it’s servicing 28 million paying subscribers.

In the digital music report carried out by the IFPI (International Federation of the Phonographic Industry) last year, the number of paying users of subscription services was an estimated 41 million. That was an increase of 46.4% on 2013. At the time Spotify made up 15 million of the 41 million subscribers. Meanwhile Apple Music hadn’t launched in the market yet and Tidal was just a month-deep into its relaunch with 17 artist owners.

Interestingly, if the estimated figure for Spotify is correct, its current paying subscribers (28m) along with Apple Music’s (11m) and Tidal’s (1m) equals 40 million paying subscribers between them. That means Spotify and Apple alone have added 24 million subscribers to the global market.

Conjecture aside, we’ll find out the exact impact streaming has had in April when the IFPI release their 2015 Digital Music Report.

Read more in The Music Network here.