Lenovo buying back mobile phone business to pursue mobile Internet technology

Lenovo buying back mobile phone business

BEIJING — Personal computer maker Lenovo Group said Friday it is joining the race to develop products that link phones and PCs by buying back a mobile phone business that it sold last year.

Lenovo, the world’s fourth-largest PC maker, sold its mobile unit to focus on computers but said the technologies are now converging, creating a “significant growth opportunity.”

The company, based in Beijing and in Morrisville, N.C., said it paid $200 million in cash and stock to acquire its former mobile phone assets from a group of Hong Kong and other investors.

“The Directors now consider that it is appropriate to move aggressively to capture the opportunity in the mobile internet business,” the company said in a statement released through the Hong Kong stock exchange.

Like other computer makers, Lenovo was battered by the global economic crisis and a slump in sales. But the company reported this month its profit for the quarter ending Sept. 30 more than doubled from a year earlier to $53 million.

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Lenovo Group: www.lenovo.com