Huawei has denied it has plans to acquire ailing handset vendor Nokia after a report linked the companies.

The Financial Times report came on the back of comments made by Richard Yu, CEO of Huawei Consumer Business Group, at the launch of the company’s flagship Ascend P6 smartphone yesterday.

“We are considering these sorts of acquisitions; maybe the combination has some synergies but depends on the willingness of Nokia. We are open-minded,” Yu said.

However, the Chinese network equipment and smartphone maker’s VP for external affairs, Bill Plummer, later denied that Nokia is part of Huawei’s future plans, when speaking to Reuters.

Nokia has previously been linked with a takeover by Microsoft and there are question marks over the fate of the once-great Finnish vendor.