Micro-Star International (MSI) has been successful in selling gaming notebooks and Lenovo is interested in acquiring MSI's gaming notebook business unit, according to sources from supply chain makers. However, MSI has denied the reports.

The sources noted that Lenovo is looking to raise its competitiveness in the gaming notebook industry and acquiring MSI would be the fastest way to achieve the purpose.

The Taiwan-based maker has not yet turned down the offer from Lenovo, who is a major client of MSI's ODM/OEM business, and both sides are still negotiating over the proposed acquisition, the sources said.

MSI's success in the gaming notebook market has also prompted others such as Acer, Asustek Computer and Toshiba to start developing such products for the market, which in turn is forcing the long-standing leader Alienware, a gaming sub-brand of Dell, to start taking more aggressive actions to defend its position.

While demand for traditional notebooks has been weakening and their ASPs declining, sales of gaming notebooks and related peripherals have been growing and contributing strong profits.

Asustek has unveiled several new ROG-branded gaming notebooks recently, while Acer has entered the gaming market with the Predator brand.

Some market watchers noted that MSI may start facing fierce competition from Dell, Acer and Asustek in the gaming notebook industry in the near future. Therefore, selling its gaming notebook business may not be such a bad idea and would allow the company to focus more on its motherboard and server businesses.

Lenovo has been aggressively acquiring companies to strengthen its competitiveness in the past few year. It has acquired IBM's global PC business, Japan-based NEC's PC business, Germany-based Medion and Brazil's largest consumer electronics maker CCE. Lenovo has also acquired Motorola Mobility from Google and IBM's x86 server business to enhance its smartphone and server businesses.