Spotify is a beast: 4M paying subscribers and growing

Streaming music service Spotify has once again achieved a new milestone by reaching over 4 million paying subscribers, according to Chief Content Officer Ken Parks.

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Parks talked about the premium subscription increase, as well as achieving more than 15 million total active Spotify users, at a Global Business Summit on Creative Content in London today, reports The Next Web. For the handful of people who haven’t heard about it, Spotify is an ultra-popular music service that lets people share their song library with others and discover new music. It’s built on a freemium business model, bringing in both advertising-based and subscription-based revenue.

News of the subscription growth comes after months of continuous improvements and additions to the service, such as its app platform, embeddable play button feature, and access across multiple platforms. More recently, Spotify added unlimited Pandora-like smart radio to its Android app.

The beginning of Spotify’s massive growth spurt arguably started last year when the Swedish company first launched in the U.S. Shortly after, it hooked up with social media behemoth Facebook to be one of the first Timeline launch partners. The last time the company reported its subscriber numbers was in late January after crossing the 3 million mark. In less than eight months, it’s managed to boost that number by 25 percent.

The steady growth rate is impressive, but Spotify’s business model isn’t completely free of turbulence. Critics cite the company’s extremely high music licensing costs as one reason it may not succeed in the future. Also, indie music labels aren’t happy with Spotify’s payment structure, and have even removed their music from the service entirely. However for the moment, it appears that both music fans and music labels are pleased with the service.

Spotify has raised around $188 million in funding, and is reportedly seeking a massive new round that could boost the startup’s valuation upwards of $3.5 billion.

Spotify CEO Daniel Ek photo via Fortune Live Media/Flickr