World Wide Licenses (WWL) Europe confirmed today that the Polaroid x530 has been withdrawn from sale in the UK but will be re-introduced later in the year. In an official statement, WWL, which was given exclusive rights to sell Polaroid-branded products in 2002, says the x530 was sent to some Argos stores before it had been approved for shipment, but there also appears to be a 'technical issue'. The Polaroid x530 is the first compact digital camera to utilize Foveon's X3 sensor. UPDATE 05/11/05: The long-awaited x530 will ship in August 2005, according to the Polaroid's website. We won't hold our breath!

Michael Thomas, Sales & Marketing Manager for WWL Europe said, "There is a technical issue that affects a percentage of those products shipped, but not all of them. Due to such small quantities of product shipping to store level and actually sold, it made more sense to simply remove all such products from sale." Contact WWL on 0845 300 4312 for more information.

Press release:

WWL (Europe) confirm that the Polaroid x530 was shipped exclusively to a small number of Argos stores by mistake. The x530 was not at this time approved for shipment, hence the decision to remove this from sale immediately. All unsold stock has, or is being removed and returned to WWL accordingly.

WWL have since now determined that the x530 will not now be released into the UK for sale until the start of the summer sales season, so products should be available for sale from August 2005 onwards.

Any consumers that have purchased this product from Argos and are duly unhappy, should take this back to the store from which it was bought, or alternatively please contact WWL customer services on 0845 300 4312.