Lenovo has announced that it is in talks to establish a smartphone joint venture with NEC, as it looks to boost global expansion of its fledgling smartphone business.
NEC has reportedly been in talks with Lenovo since early 2013 on a potential sale or tie-up involving its mobile unit.
Lenovo said in a statement: "The board would like to inform the shareholders of the company and potential investors that the company is in preliminary negotiations with a party in connection with a potential joint venture transaction."
Over the past eight years, the Chinese PC maker has been forging deals to expand its PC business, but the company has now changed its strategy toward smartphones, tablets and enterprise computing over declining PC shipments.
NEC spokesman said that the company’s mobile phone business is in a difficult state and it requires deciding on a direction for the business.
"For that, we are considering various opportunities and that stance up until now has not changed," spokesman said.
In addition to NEC’s mobile’s mobile phone business, Lenovo has been reported in the market over 2012 to be in search of other acquisition targets that include IBM’s low-end server business, Nokia Oyj and blackberry maker Research In Motion.
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Recently, the second-largest smartphone vendor in China revealed its plans to enter US smartphone market within a year.
