Spotify is adding paid subscribers at a rate of about 2M a month

Spotify, the world’s leading streaming music service, has pushed past 60 million paid subscribers, according to a new report published by Reuters.

That’s up from the 50 million paid users milestone reported in March this year, which means the digital music service has added 10 million paid users in less than half a year, at a rate of about 2 million a month.

As of June, Spotify boasted an active user base of about 140 million, the vast majority of whom tap in through its ad-supported “free” tier.

This all seems to confirm Spotify’s outright lead in the nascent streaming sector. One of its chief rivals, Apple Music, boasted 27 million subscribers (with an undisclosed number of free trial users) as at June, exactly two years after Apple launched its streaming music ambitions. Deezer is a distant third (the service counted some 7 million subscribers at the end of 2016, according to a report published by Midia in January, the most recent available data).

News of Spotify’s growth, which is partially driven by product developments and, in some markets, the disappearance of certain competitors, comes as the company reportedly readies for a stealth “direct listing” on the New York Stock Exchange which would see it go public without doing an IPO.

Spotify, last valued by private market investors at about US$8.5 billion, would be the largest company to take this route.

Execs at Spotify will have the magical 100 million paid user milestone in their sites, but that dream is still some way off. Netflix, the streaming media titan, already got there. The US based company revealed last month it had sprinted past 103 million global subscribers, adding about 5.2 million in three months. Netflix is now valued at US$78 billion.

This article originally appeared on The Industry Observer, which is now part of The Music Network.