NEC Corp's, an electronics corporation in Japan, talks with Lenovo Group Ltd had stalled. The two companies were discussing a mobile phone undertaking. However, their negotiations were held up because of conflicts on majority proprietorship and patents. The information came from a person with knowledge of the matter.
NEC and Lenovo were already partners in a personal computer enterprise. The Nikkei business daily reported that NEC would just exit its loss-making smartphone unit. This was following the failure to agree on a deal with Lenovo.
On Wednesday, the source stated that NEC was still thinking through many options. This included negotiations with a possible partner other than Lenovo. It also considered stopping the progress made in latest smartphones. The source said that there was a possibility that NEC would concentrate on its current lines of feature phones.
The Lenovo Group of China was examining mergers and acquisitions. It wanted to expand in high-growth markets like smartphones, tablets and firm computing. This was after its PC shipments plunged.
NEC and Lenovo both refused to give a comment regarding the matter.
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