Amazon to stop sales of certain Apple, Google devices

Amazon.com will drop sales of the Apple TV and Google Chromecast, devices that compete with its own streaming media hardware, the company said.

"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. Roku, XBOX, PlayStation and Fire TV are excellent choices," said a spokesperson for the company.

Amazon told sellers it will not allow new listings and will remove existing inventory later this month, a report from Bloomberg said.

Amazon's Fire TV and Fire TV Stick connect to televisions and let users stream videos, photos, music and apps. Amazon also has a digital video platform that works on some competing devices, like the Roku set-top box, but not others.

The move likely is no different from Apple or Google denying space in their app stores to apps with competing services, said Carolina Milanesi, chief of research at Kantar Worldpanel.

"If this were to go ahead it might be more of an issue for Google, than Apple simply because Chromecast is more a mass market product than Apple TV is currently," she said.