[photopress:it_Lenovo_Disney_pc.jpg,full,alignright]One way of growing quickly is m&A — mergers and acquisitions. Now Lenovo, China’s biggest personal-computer maker, is ‘interested’ in buying companies overseas to expand share outside its main domestic market.
Chairman Yang Yuanqing told reporters in Beijing, where he is attending the annual meeting of the Chinese legislature that ‘If there is a good opportunity and it offers good returns to shareholders, we will definitely consider it.’
Lenovo, which gets more than half of sales from Asia, is seeking acquisitions after Acer last year foiled its plans to buy Netherlands-based Packard Bell BV to increase its footprint in Europe.
Chairman Yang said Lenovo, which sells computers to companies in Japan, plans to enter the consumer market there, without giving a timeframe. He said any acquisition by Lenovo won’t be in Japan.
Lenovo has increased its distribution networks in India and eastern Europe and sold more notebooks in China, expanding in emerging markets to narrow the gap with Hewlett-Packard and Dell. Lenovo in January said it will sell its moble phonet unit for $100 million after shipments slumped 31%, while PCs climbed 22%.
He said the slowing U.S. economy will hurt demand for personal computers: ‘However, it will hurt us less than our competitors as our main markets are outside the U.S. Domestic demand is still strong.’
Source: Bloomberg