TV wars: Amazon banishes Google Chromecast and Apple TV to “avoid confusion” as it focuses on Prime
Is this the new war of the smartphones? Amazon, which has increasingly placed a focus on its Prime Instant Video TV offering, has banished Apple and Google's TV streaming offerings from its shelves.
Businessweek reported today that the company has decided to stop stocking both the Apple TV (a new version of which is due to ship this month) and Google's Chromecast.
A spokesman for Amazon said the move was to "avoid customer confusion".
Over the last three years, Prime Video has become an important part of Prime. It’s important that the streaming media players we sell interact well with Prime Video in order to avoid customer confusion.
The company said all listings of the product will be removed at the end of this month.
However, it will continue to stock Xbox and PlayStation, which both use Amazon's streaming service.
Like Apple, Amazon has relaunched its TV offering, unveiling a new Fire TV box and a Fire TV stick, which comes with voice remote, earlier this month.
All three devices plug into televisions, allowing users to stream TV shows and movies through their wifi.