Hewlett-Packard wants out of digital camera business

Hewlett-Packard Co. (NYSE: HPQ) wants to get out of the digital camera business and is looking at OEM manufacturers to design, source, manufacture and distribute digital cameras under its brand instead. This comes as a little of a surprise since the digital camera market is still white hot in terms of annual sales.

However, the competition is absolutely fierce between market leaders Canon, Sony and Kodak and a whole collection of other manufacturers with a zillion brand names under their collective wings.

HP probably wants to focus on areas where it has higher profit potential, and that's hard to see in the consumer digital camera sales game. While the competition has consumer and professional digital camera offerings, HP's consumer-only focus gives it less leverage in this marketplace.

The company stated that it wants to more heavily focus on the imaging/printing business instead of the imaging hardware business, so there you go. HP will take a $30 million charge in its Q4 period related to the move and added that it will be shifting resources freed up from the market exit to web printing services and digital publishing. That shift makes sense due to profit margin generation alone, and I doubt anyone will miss HP's digital consumer cameras on retail shelves anyway.