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IBM Negotiates With China's Lenovo to Sell PC Business, New York Times Reports

Posted on: Friday, 3 December 2004, 12:00 CST

Dec. 3--NEW YORK -- International Business Machines Corp. is negotiating with Lenovo Group Ltd. to sell its personal computer business to China's largest PC maker, the New York Times reported Friday.

The computer giant, responsible for shifting personal computing into the mainstream with its first IBM PC in 1981, is also negotiating with at least one other potential buyer, the newspaper said on its website, quoting people close to the talks.

"The sale, likely to be in the $1 billion to $2 billion range, is expected to include the entire range of desktop, laptop and notebook computers made by IBM," the paper said.

"The retreat from the business may be the ultimate acknowledgement that the personal computer has become a staple of everyday life, a commodity product, yielding very slim profits," it said.

"The PC business represents about 12 percent of IBM's annual revenue of $92 billion," it said.

In the most recent quarter, IBM ranked a distant third in world PC sales, with 5.6 percent of the market, following Dell Inc. with 16.8 percent and Hewlett-Packard Co. with 15 percent, the newspaper said.

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IBM, 6680, DELL,

Source: Kyodo News International, Tokyo

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