Although it stopped selling its ThinkPad 8 in the U.S. and sold out of the Miix, Lenovo will still make 8-inch Windows tablets in the future.

For those unfamiliar with the matter, Lenovo stirred some heavy waves last week when news surfaced that the company had halted sales of its 8-inch Windows tablets in North America. The reason behind this decision was was reported as low consumer demand for such models, but the rumor mill quickly started speculating that 8-inch Windows-powered Lenovo tablets were now history.

In light of such speculation, Lenovo has now issued a statement to make things clear and reassure customers that it will continue making 8-inch Windows tablets and sell them in North America as well.

"We will continue to bring new Windows devices to market across different screen sizes, including a new 8-inch tablet and 10-inch tablet coming this holiday. Our model mix changes as per customer demand, and although we are no longer selling ThinkPad 8 in the U.S., and we have sold out of Miix 8-inch, we are not getting out of the small-screen Windows tablet business as was reported by the media," Lenovo explains. "In short, we will continue to sell both 8 and 10 inch Windows tablets in both the U.S. and non-U.S. markets."

In other words, the company has temporarily halted sales of its 8-inch slates in the U.S., but this decision is not permanent and it doesn't mean that North American customers will never get 8-inch Windows tablets from Lenovo again.

Small-screen tablets have become quite successful due to Google's Nexus 7, Apple's iPad Mini, and others, and the category is unlikely to disappear anytime soon. Lenovo will still be part of it and will provide 8-inch Windows tablets in the future even for U.S. customers, so there's no reason to worry in this regards. The rumor mill gets ahead of itself sometimes, but not all speculation turns out to be accurate.

At the same time, as ZDNet points out, Lenovo's decision to stop selling 8-inch slates for now may be badly timed, as it comes shortly after Microsoft announced that it plans to bolster the small-screen tablet segment by offering Windows 8 for free to manufacturers who make smartphones and tablets with screens under 9 inches. On the other hand, this means that Lenovo will have all the more reasons to return to this segment in the future.