Lenovo conspires with NEC to build smartphones

IT SEEMS that every technology outfit in the world plus its dog wants to build its own smartphone.

The latest to hint that it wants to join in the game is the Chinese maker of Thinkpad notebooks, Lenovo.

According to Reuters, the world's fourth largest PC brand is wining and dining Japan's NEC to jointly develop smartphones in the future.

The news was revealed by an off-the-cuff remark by the CEO of Lenovo.

Unfortunately Lenovo CEO Yang Yuanqing was being particularly inscrutable about the deal. He was giving a press conference to announce the company's joint venture with NEC to sell PCs in Japan and would not be drawn further on the matter.

PC companies are looking at the high markups that Apple gets for smartphones with some longing. For a few years now they have been competing on razor thin margins.

Lenovo's operating margin was just 1.8 per cent in the third quarter of last year, Reuters tells us. µ