Acquiring Nokia Is a Joke According to Lenovo Exec.

Nokia has been the subject of rumored takeovers and acquisitions in recent years as its stock prices have plummeted. More recently, rival Samsung and partner Microsoft were speculated as having interests in acquiring the Finnish phone-maker, once known as the largest smartphone and phone manufacturer with innovative, consumer-geared technologies. Now, it looks like Lenovo is rumored to consider acquiring Nokia according to the latest rumors.

However, according to senior Lenovo executive Fianfranco Lanci, the ‘news’ is considered to be a ‘joke;’ he denies that Lenovo is considering an acquisition of Nokia.

“This must be a joke,” Lanci, who runs Lenovo’s operations in Europe, Middle East and Africa, told Reuters. “There’s nothing ongoing.”

When the iPhone was released with technologies like large touch screens, capacitive display technologies for touch input, and a large apps ecosystem that Apple’s late CEO Steve Jobs had attributed to modeling on Nokia for security, Nokia was unable to catch up and was slow to respond to the changing market.

Acquiring Nokia would have given Lenovo an easy entry into the worldwide smartphone segment. Lenovo, which has built a name for itself after it had acquired IBM’s PC business some years ago, does not have a large phone presence outside of its home market in China.

However, an unidentified Hong Kong banker source told Reuters that this is unlikely: “It (Lenovo) would have been spending so much money buying something that is not really Lenovo’s core line of business. I would think a more likely possibility would be some form of collaboration or cooperation between the two.”

Nokia had recently announced plans to streamline its operations, focus on Windows Phone, and restructure its business, the latter of which is resulting in a reduction of 10,000 jobs.

Nokia has not commented on the recent acquisition rumor.