MUMBAI: Spotify has released new data which shows that the music streaming service grew substantially during the last year. The company announced, via a short blog, that it had reached a total of 60 million active users and 15 million were paid subscribers before the start of 2015.

The small note also thanked music fans because the company had an "amazing 2014", and there is no doubt that the music streaming service had a wonderful year. In May 2014, Spotify revealed that it had 40 million active users and 10 million paid subscribers.

Later, in November, despite a clash with Grammy winner Taylor Swift, who removed her music from the service, the company's CEO- Daniel Ek, once again announced its growing numbers. At the time, Spotify said it had 50 million users, of which 12.5 million were paying subscribers.

It is likely that Spotify's growth spurt is related to the service's pre-Christmas offer that enabled listeners to sign up for the premium subscription service at just $0.99 for three months, instead of the regular monthly cost, which is $9.99. In November, the music streaming service also introduced a ‘family plan' that gave subscribers the option of adding up to four on Spotify, through their own account for just $4.99 a month.

While there is no doubting that Spotify is seeing some impressive growth, the music streaming site faces stiff competition from other music services like Deezer, Google Play Music, iTunes Radio and Amazon Music. But perhaps its major competition is Pandora, which announced at the end of October 2014 that it had 76.5 million active listeners.