Lenovo has a plan to stay at the top of the PC market

It seems as if Fujitsu could be on the verge of selling its PC division to Lenovo, a move which would bolster the latter's lead as the biggest computer manufacturer, helping it stay ahead of second-place vendor HP Inc.

Fujitsu span off its PC business back in February, and has been mulling options since then, with the most recent chatter on the acquisition grapevine being that Lenovo is ready to step in and buy the division.

As the BBC spotted, according to the Nikkei financial newspaper in Japan, the deal will likely be closed later this month.

You can certainly tell this is a serious prospect because Fujitsu has actually issued a statement on the rumours buzzing about the media, noting that it is "currently considering various possibilities [for the PC business], including what is being reported, but a decision has not yet been made".

Acknowledging the fact that this is a possibility is a reasonably strong indicator that there's a decent chance of this happening. Indeed, mentioning anything in the first place is unusual – normally this sort of thing isn't commented on at all until the deal is done and an official announcement is ready.

PC pain

This year has been another bad one for the PC industry, with every report and batch of statistics emerging painting a picture of big slumps in sales.

Throughout this, however, Lenovo has remained top dog of the PC vendors, although in the latest figures from Gartner issued in the summer, the Chinese firm's PC shipments dropped 2.2% year-on-year.

Despite this slippage, Lenovo was still top with a 20.5% market share, but HP moved up to a 19.1% market share, making a gain of 1.8% in the number of units it shifted compared to the previous year.

The other big analyst firm IDC also shows Lenovo is top with a 21.2% market share in its latest report on the industry, but it's only just ahead of HP which is on 20.8%.

Lenovo will certainly be exploring its own options to stay at the top of the tree, and perhaps leveraging Fujitsu's business is the chosen course.

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October 06, 2016 at 04:11PM
Darren Allan