Music industry mogul Jimmy Iovine -- who recently voiced concerns about the future viability of music streaming -- will leave Apple Music this year, according to a。 Billboard 。Billboard。

report.。

SEE ALSO:Spotify's massive $1.6 billion lawsuit reveals how it must adapt if it wants to survive 。

The music site Hits Daily Double first reported that Iovine's departure will happen later this year, and Billboard followed by reporting Iovine will leave when his stocks become vested (agreed upon time for Iovine to get rights to his Apple stocks). 。

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"The streaming services have a bad situation, there's no margins, they're not making any money."。

An Apple Music subscription, like Spotify, costs $9.99 per month and plays ad-free music. Apple says it has 40 million songs in its catalog -- while Spotify has about 30 million. 。

But while these subscriptions numbers are impressive, Iovine wasn't convinced that streaming companies, in their current form, could be profitable. At a dinner event in September 2017, Iovine took questions from reporters about the state of the streaming service, and he answered candidly.。

As Billboard reports, Iovine was skeptical about how streaming companies (or divisions within a company) can be profitable on their own -- without the backing of massive tech firms that sell other tangible products:
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"The streaming business is not a great business. It's fine with the big companies: Amazon, Apple, Google... Of course it's a small piece of their business, very cool, but Spotify is the only standalone, right? So they have to figure out a way to show the road to making this a real business."
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Indeed Spotify, while having generated billions of dollars, reported a $601 million dollar loss in 2016. Its sales in 2016 did double -- but there are still questions about longer term profitability. In 2017, the still-private company's losses are assumed to have continued, though it had recorded an impressive $2.2 billion in just the first half of 2017.。