One of its major factors that I believe is a cause for it competing strongly against Bitcoin is the rise of its use in ICOs and also for ERC20 tokens.
I agree. It has shown great resilience and endurance over the years, and even if Bitcoin's reign is not officially or really over, Ethereum has really shown great progress in itself as it continually gained value, even if only at a slow pace. Or, at least, held its ground against the negative movements and trends happening in the market that caused many other altcoins, even the strong and reliable ones, to experience price dumps and plummet in value. Also, having a good technology to back it up, many people are really looking positively with Ethereum's progress as of late.