Will Lenovo really end up buying BlackBerry? We can’t say for sure, but it’s fair to say that such a move is looking a lot more likely following comments by CEO Yang Yuanqing to French media earlier this week.

Speaking to the newspaper Les Echos, Yuanqing agreed that acquiring BlackBerry “could make sense”, although he indicated that he need to analyze the company and market conditions before making any move.

Yianqing’s comments saw shares in BlackBerry jump by 14.1% as investors looked to position themselves ahead of any deal. However, a spokersperson for Lenovo later told Bloomberg that people shouldn’t jump to any conclusions, adding that Yuangqing’s comments were not indicative of any decisions regarding Blackberry at this time.

What Lenovo Stands To Gain From Buying BlackBerry

Acquiring a well-known brand like BlackBerry would certainly seem to make sense for Lenovo, which has already established itself as a global brand in its own right. As well as being the dominant brand in China, its seeing rapid growth in many other markets too, such as Africa, Europe and the Middle East. Indeed, Lenovo was the only one of the top five PC makers to see any kind of growth in these markets last year.

Furthermore, Lenovo has demonstrated its appetite for buying struggling western brands in the past. It’s a tactic that has paid off handsomely for the company, most dramatically when it purchased IBM’s PC division in 2005, transforming itself into one of the world’s leading PC makers today. As of last year, Lenovo had hauled itself right to the very summit of the PC market, and now vies with HP for bragging rights as the world’s No.1.

Lenovo has shown that unlike other firms, there is still room for growth in the PC market, but this hasn’t stopped the firm from recognizing that it needs to expand into new markets if it wants to thrive. As part of its “protect and attack” strategy, the firm has dove headfirst into mobile, emerging from nowhere to pass Apple and become the second-most popular smartphone brand in China, just behind Samsung.

Now that its secured a foothold in its home market Lenovo is looking to ship its smartphones abroad, but repeating its success outside China will be no easy feat. While Lenovo has considerable advantages at home, such as the strength of its brand and a five-star distribution network, it lacks these crucial elements away from it. This is where BlackBerry would come in handy – after all, despite its long and painful decline, the brand still enjoys some (albeit minimal) market share in most countries, and in particular it remains popular with business customers, something that might just Lenovo the lift it needs to compete with Samsung and Apple.

Buying a tired, old brand that’s favored by the business world has worked once before (think ‘Thinkpad’), so could it be that Yuangqing and Lenovo are hoping to repeat the trick in mobile?