Lenovo sells its products in around 160 countries. Lenovo's principal facilities are in Beijing and Morrisville, with research centers in Beijing, Shanghai, Shenzhen, Xiamen, Chengdu, Nanjing, and Wuhan in China, Yamato in Kanagawa Prefecture, Japan, and Morrisville in the U.S. It also has a joint venture with NEC, Lenovo NEC Holdings, which produces personal computers for the Japanese market. Lenovo was founded in Beijing in November 1984 as Legend and was incorporated in Hong Kong in 1988. Lenovo acquired IBM's personal computer business in 2005 and agreed to acquire its Intel-based server business in 2014. Lenovo entered the smartphone market in
Lenovo 2011, Lenovo announced that it planned to acquire control of Medion, a German electronics manufacturing company. Lenovo said the acquisition would double its share of the German computer market, making it the third-largest vendor by sales (after Acer and Hewlett-Packard). The deal, which closed in the third quarter of the same year, was the first in which a Chinese company acquired a well-known German company. This acquisition will give Lenovo 14% of the German computer market. Gerd Brachmann, chairman of Medion, agreed to sell two-thirds of his 60 percent stake in the company. He will be paid in cash for