Lenovo is indeed talking to NEC over a smartphone joint venture that could potentially help the Chinese company reach new markets. At the same time, NEC — which has been losing money lately — could get some reward for all the hard work its engineers put into making some of the world’s coolest devices like that Medias W smartphone.
The two companies are in the midst of “preliminary talks” and at present it’s still not clear whether some sort of agreement will be reached or not. We know that Lenovo and NEC are already partners in the PC business, but as we know that’s pretty different market with its own rules.
NEC on its side has already merged its handset unit into a joint venture with Casio (NEC Casio), which also took on the mobile devices unit of Hitachi.
As for Lenovo, it’s growing like crazy thanks to the strong sales in China, with plans to eventually bring its phones to the US market. As I’m writing this, the only Lenovo smartphone worth talking about is the K900, which is powered by Intel’s Atom chip. That could change quickly and merger with (or that’s acquisition of) NEC may prove beneficial for everyone. We’ll be following this story and get back to you as soon as there’s something worth ranting about…
[Via: MobileWorldLive]