Hewlett-Packard has decided to stop reselling Apple’s line of iPods, the Wall Street Journal confirmed Friday [paid sub. req.]. HP spokesman Ross Camp told the paper that “the iPod doesn’t fit in with our digital entertainment strategy,” and said the company will quit selling the iPod at end of September.
“The deal between the two companies, which compete against each other in the PC market, was originally viewed as a major step for both companies, but the breakdown of the partnership isn’t likely to be a big loss for either side,” The Journal reports. “H-P on average accounted for only about 5% of iPod sales, which totaled about 6.2 million of the devices, worth more than $1.1 billion in revenue, for Apple last quarter.”
Camp told CNET News.com that HP’s “current plan” is to continue including Apple’s iTunes on its desktop and notebooks like it has done since 2004. The HP representative also said that under the terms of the partnership with Apple, HP cannot develop or market a rival digital music player until August 2006.
Apple and HP first announced their partnership in January 2004 at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. HP started selling iPods in August 2004, then later added the iPod mini and more recently the iPod shuffle to its HP-branded line.