Lenovo Group on Wednesday once again reiterated its intentions to acquire other PC makers in order to gain market share. The world’s fourth largest PC supplier was little more specific than usual and said that it was interested to make acquisitions in the so-called BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India, China) block of countries.

Lenovo does need to expand its global presence and it would be naturally easier for the company to make acquisitions amid the global economy slump. However, in general, the situation will not be easy for Lenovo outside China: corporate customers are slowing down their spending and consumers will also be more economical due to devaluation of national currencies in many countries.

“The overseas market will be very challenging this year, but we have high confidence to maintain ourselves in domestic market. In China we have government policy support to sell our products to rural markets,” said Yang Yuanqing, chief executive of Lenovo, speaking on the sidelines of China's annual parliament meeting in Beijing to Reuters news-agency.

There is another benefit for Lenovo in China: banks in the country are more willing to give loans to help the company to acquire its smaller rivals. Meanwhile, banks in other countries are less willing to lend due to economic crisis.

“We have no problem with our cash flow, but bank loans would help shore it up,” Lenovo's chairman, Liu Chuanzhi, said.

This is not the first time when Lenovo openly admits plans to acquire other PC makers. Unfortunately for the company, its only big acquisition in the recent years was IBM’s PC business. The company did not manage to take over Gateway in the U.S. or Packard Bell in Europe and lost its No. 3 spot on the PC market to Acer Group, which commanded 12.6% of computer shipments in Q3 2008, according to Gartner market tracking company, just a percent point behind Dell (13.6%). Furthermore, Lenovo did not, at least openly, fight for Fujitsu-Siemens, when the joint-venture was about to break up in the recent months.

Tags: Lenovo, Business