On Friday, it is cutting 4,500 jobs, and announced second quarter net operating losses between $950 and $995 million.
The company, based in Waterloo, Ont., said it sold 3.7 million smartphones over the quarter, with revenues totalling $1.6 billion.
Just months ago, BlackBerry unveiled two new smartphones, the Q10 and the Z10, which were designed to combat the increasingly competitive smartphone market 鈥� now dominated by Samsung and Apple 鈥� while maintaing the business-friendly design that had made the company such a desired product in its better days. According to BlackBerry's own numbers, the company had , which is a slight drop-off from 79,000,000 in December, 2012.
Big cut. BlackBerry had 12,700 employees as of March. 4,500 jobs lost is 36% of workforce.
鈥� John Shmuel (@jshmuel)
With the announcement, BlackBerry shares fell 16 per cent to $9.08 on the Toronto Stock Exchange, and the company's delayed but continued financial free falls has caused some to believe today's news leans toward a ticking time bomb, not a step in the right direction.
"Who would want to throw good money after bad?" said Reuters's Felix Salmon, . "There's a breakup value to the company, but as a going concern, I believe this is the beginning of the end of people walking around with BlackBerrys in their pocket."
------------------------------------------------------------
Coverage of BlackBerry's job cuts and stock tumble from around the Interweb:
"Twitter reacts to 4,500 BlackBerry layoffs" 鈥� Trevor Melanson,
"BlackBerry confirms massive layoffs" 鈥� Chris Velazco,
"BlackBerry to retreat from consumer market" 鈥� Aaron Souppoulis,
CBC:
