Apple Music Chief Jimmy Iovine to depart from Apple

Jimmy Iovine, who has long served as the head of Apple’s music streaming service, is reportedly planning on departing from the company in August this year. According to a report published by The Verge, the timing coincides with Iovine’s Apple shares as being fully vested, following Iovine and Dr. Dre’s sale of headphone maker Beats to Apple in 2014 for about $3 billion. The Cupertino technology giant has still not commented on the matter as yet.

It is safe to say that Apple Music grew potentially big under the reign of Iovine. As noted by The Verge, the music streaming service grew to about 30 million paid users, under the leadership of Iovine. He can be considered as the main reason why Apple Music can even begin to compete with the Swedish-based, massively-popular music streaming service called Spotify, which currently boasts of 70 million monthly paid subscribers.

Iovine led the company to build its streaming service to a massive size in a short period of time. They have been keeping a close look at Spotify’s growth, and their main objective has been to defeat the rival. This impressive deed has won Iovine the respect in the technology market that he has long enjoyed for years.

It is still not clear as to what Iovine’s future plans entail after he leaves Apple. It goes without saying that the music chief will receive a substantial amount of payout on the table. He could make any number of business deals or investments through the use of it. In an interview with Billboard last year, Iovine commented on the figures released by Goldman Sachs.

He had suggested that Apple Music has the potential of growing the record business to unimaginable heights over the next decade or so.  “There’s just a problem here that needs some sort of solution, and I want to contribute to it,” he told Billboard. “Goldman Sachs may think it’s solved, but I don’t. We’re not even close.”