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Original URL: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/08/01/lenovo_not_buying_nokia/

Lenovo: 'Us, buy Nokia? Surely you jest'

Flushes flap about Finnish phone firm feast as fiction

By Anna Leach

Posted in Financial News, 1st August 2012 16:22 GMT

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Lenovo's EMEA chief Gianfranco Lanci has laughed off suggestions that the Chinese computer giant would buy out flailing phone-maker Nokia, dismissing the idea as a "joke".

When asked about rumours that Lenovo was considering swooping on the troubled phone-makers, whose value has plunged in the past two years, Lanci told Reuters [1]: "This must be a joke. There's nothing ongoing."

Nokia has been haemorrhaging market share, and its last set of financial results [2] show little sign of an end to the decline, though some commenters are more hopeful [3].

Anyway, recent rumours that the Finnish phone maker might be about to get a Chinese sugar daddy sent Nokia shares on an unusual high, setting a seven-day record not seen since 1991, according to Businessweek [4].

However, it still doesn't look like Lenovo has enough billions spare to pump into the foundering company.

Shares in Nokia have dropped more than 70 per cent in the past year and a half, but the company is currently valued at about €7.2bn. ®