Spotify has 30 million subscribers

The number of paying Spotify subscribers has grown from 20 million to 30 million in less than a year. The director of the streaming music service announced this on Monday. The growth was achieved despite increased competition from Apple Music, among others.

Spotify CEO Daniel Ek shared the milestone in a in tweet about Cuba’s new openness. “None of the subscribers are still in Cuba,” the chief executive said. In June 2015, Spotify passed the 20 million mark and the year before that, the 10 million subscriber mark was broken.

Spotify took much longer to reach that ten million: 5.5 years. The accelerated growth comes despite increased competition. Among other things, Spotify faces competition from Apple Music, which now has eleven million paying users. Apple Music started in June 2015. In addition, the new streaming service Tidal has come online. This service is supported by major artists, but it is unknown how many paying users it has.