After buying the PC businesses of NEC and IBM and taking over Germany's Medion, Lenovo aims to acquire yet another struggling rival.
Lenovo To Acquire Fujitsu's PC Business
According to The Inquirer, the computer company Lenovo is currently carrying out negotiations with Fujitsu to take a controlling stake in the firm's PC business. The news is coming after Fujitsu's plan to merge its PC business division into a joint venture with Toshiba and Sony ended in failure.
There are still disagreements regarding the financial details of the deal, but Japanese hardware vendor has already confirmed reports that the two companies are in negotiations, according to Bloomberg. For Fujitsu, the deal would help the company to discard a struggling business.
According to data coming from IDC, in 2015, Lenovo had a global market share of 20.7 percent in the PC industry, while Fujitsu's share was less than two percent. An eventual acquisition of Fujitsu's PC business would help Lenovo to enjoy greater economies of scale.
Fujitsu's PC Business
In the mid-1990s, when it took full control of the ICL company, Fujitsu also acquired ICL's PC business. At the time, the PC market was still hot and one of ICL's strategies under CEO Peter Bonfield involved expanding in this field.
After the 1991 acquisition of Nokia's PC unit, Nokia Data, ICL struggled to achieve the margins necessary to turn a decent profit in the PC market. In turn, Fujitsu has been faced in recent years strong price competition from companies like Lenovo and a declining PC market.
In 1999, Fujitsu created a 50/50 joint venture called Fujitsu Siemens Computers, by merging its PC business outside Japan with Siemens. After absorbing the Fujitsu Siemens Computers company in 2009, the company was renamed Fujitsu Technology Solutions. According to Ars Technica, Fujitsu was one of the world's top five PC makers.
Lenovo's PC Business
In the meantime, in the year 2005, Lenovo acquired IBM's Personal Computer Division in a deal that established the foundations for the company's expansion on the global PC market.
In 2011, Lenovo created a PC joint venture with NEC, followed by taking over the whole company earlier this year. In the same year, Lenovo also acquired Germany's Medion. In 2014, the Chinese PC giant took over IBM's System x low-end server business.
