As a labor strike at an IBM factory in Shenzhen continued for the ninth day, the computer giant Lenovo broke its silence on Tuesday with a statement that vowed to absorb all of the factory's ex-IBM employees.

Lenovo, which purchased IBM's low-end server business in January for $2.3 billion, also promised the employees they would get nearly the same salaries and benefit packages they had before the acquisition.

"We will take in all employees from IBM's x86 server unit and be fair in our arrangements. We guarantee that their pay and benefits will not be lower than before," the Lenovo statement said.