Recently, the Canadian OEM announced that it has been acquired by Fairfax Financial for $4.7 billion. Since the announcement, it is rumored that the company received several other bids as well, with the original founders Mike Lazaridis and Douglas Fregin also interested in purchasing the company. A new report suggests that the Chinese manufacturer might be interested in acquiring Blackberry or parts of it.
According a report from WSJ, citing people familiar with the matter, the Chinese manufacturer signed a non-disclosure agreement to dig into the financial records of the Canadian OEM. This is not the first time Lenovo has been tipped as the potential buyer for Blackberry — it all started in Januarry when a rumor mentioned that Lenovo might acquire Blackberry. The news also came out several times before and the company showed interest in acquiring the Canadian OEM on multiple occasions.
Lenovo manufactures its own set of smartphones that are fairly popular in China. However, a deal with Blackberry would give the company a chance to mark it’s footsteps in Canada and US. Both companies declined to comment so we have to take this news with a pinch of salt.
Blackberry faced tough competition from its iPhone and Android devices in the past few years. The major disappointment for the company was the first Blackberry 10 OS powered handset, Blackberry Z10, which was blamed to be the cause because of its poor sales and the fall in revenue. Recently, the company also introduced its first 5-inch phablet known as Blackberry Z30 powered by Blackberry 10.2 OS.
Source: CNET