Huawei would consider snapping
up Nokia, which could help it boost its smartphone gains in Europe and the U.S., a company executive said on Tuesday.
According to the Financial Times
of London (paywall), Richard Yu,
chairman of Huawei’s consumer
business group, said at the launch of its latest smartphone offering, the Ascend P6, in London: “We are considering these sorts of acquisitions; maybe the combination has some synergies but depends on the willingness of Nokia.”
“We are open minded,” Yu told
reporters. Nokia would have to be a willing participant in a buyout
discussion, but its remains mum on whether or not its even in discussions with Huawei, or any other company for that matter.
A Nokia spokesperson said the
company “does not comment on
market speculation.”
Or, should Huawei consider a
hostile takeover, it could bypass
the need for the Chinese phone
maker to deal with the pesky problem of Nokia’s stubborn management. Nokia shareholders are getting twitchy over the company’s Windows Phone
strategy — ergo, it’s entire strategy moving forward. If Huawei goes straight to Nokia shareholders, they could take the offer and run while the Finnish phone maker is still afloat.
Currently, Huawei has a burgeoning base of users in China, taking the third slot in the Chinese volume shipment space behind Samsung and Apple, but it wants to move away from feature
phones into the smartphone space.
And no better candidate than ailing smartphone maker Nokia, which has its range of high-quality Lumia smartphones that just aren’t selling as well as they could be.
Based on comments to the London-based publication, Yu hinted that should Nokia succumb to a buyout deal, Huawei might ditch Windows Phone altogether in favor of “free” Android.
It comes after at least a year of
speculation on who might buy
Nokia. From Intel to Microsoft,
even Lenovo at one point, based
on comments made by Nokia chief
executive Stephen Elop that he is
sticking to his guns, at least with
its Windows Phone strategy.
Whether or not that extends to being bailed out by another company remains unclear.
Shares in Nokia ($NOK ) rose by as
much as 11 percent on the news,
according to Barrons.
BlackBerry ( $BBRY) was also up
by 4 percent on the news, considering the firm has yet to pick itself up from the floor of the boxing ring, after having ten bells kicked out of it by the rival smartphone market, and could
also be a suitable acquisition
target for Huawei.
This story originally appeared as
“Huawei ‘considering’ Nokia
acquisition: report ” on ZDNet.
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