The company announced that it will continue selling its current portfolio of cameras until the first half of 2008, by when a partnership arrangement is expected to be put in place. It will incur expenses of approximately $30 million in the fourth fiscal quarter ending October 31, 2007 for the implementation of this model.
HP has released three camera models this year, including the 7.2-megapixel Photosmart R837, 6- megapixel M537 and 5-megapixel M437.
The company’s shift in strategy is aimed at directing its resources to fulfill the company’s Print 2.0 growth initiatives, which aim at home photo printing, online photo services and retail photo-finishing. The company said that the main objectives of this strategy are to deliver faster print speeds at low costs, solutions for printing from web, and extending HP’s digital content creation and publishing platforms across all customer segments.
For the third quarter ending July 2007, the company’s imaging and printing group (IPG), of which camera business is a part, grew at 8% year-on-year to $6.8 billion. The IPG’s supplies revenue grew 9%, commercial hardware revenue grew 6% and consumer hardware revenue grew 10%.
Early last year, Konica Minolta also withdrew from its camera and photo business. It transferred its camera and photo assets to Sony, which was already developing digital SLRs with Konica-Minolta, because of low profits in the imaging businesses.
Source: ComputerWire daily updates
