Lenovo distances itself from RIM acquisition report

Late last week, an interview with Lenovo’s CFO Wong Wai Ming that ran in Bloomberg implied that the company could be considering an acquisition of struggling smartphone maker RIM. Now, Ming is distancing himself from the remarks, says TechCrunch, citing a Chinese-language report from Sina Technology. A Google translation of today’s report appears to say that Ming only made the comments about RIM because he was asked about the specific company by a Bloomberg reporter, and that he only intended to discuss Lenovo’s investment strategy in generalities. Lenovo wouldn’t be the first company to toy with the idea of acquiring RIM; Amazon briefly pursued the idea in the summer of 2011, only to be rebuffed.

All eyes are on RIM this week as it prepares to launch its long-awaited BlackBerry 10 devices in New York on Wednesday. The event is crucial for the company, as it struggles to maintain relevancy against competitors like Apple and Samsung. IDC reports that RIM sold 7.7 million smartphones last quarter; down 38 percent over the same quarter two years prior, as the global smartphone market doubled in size.