BlackBerry to cut 40% of staff

Canada's Minister for Employment Jason Kenney has said he sympathises with employees of phone company BlackBerry, after it announced it would cut around 40% of its workforce. Canada is one of the countries that manufactures the phone.

Phone company BlackBerry could survive as a much smaller player, an analyst has told Reuters, after it announced that it would cut around 40% of its global workforce.

BGC Partners analyst Colin Gillis said: "This is the end of the BlackBerry as we know it.

"This is a major pivot. They are cutting half of their employees and they're going to focus on becoming a niche player focused on the enterprise."

He added: "The company has sailed off a cliff...What do you expect when you announce you're up for sale? Who wants to commit to a platform that could possibly be shut down?"

The Ontario-based company BlackBerry said it expects that its adjusted net loss, will be in a range of about $250 million to $265 million (£165.4m) or a loss of 47 cents to 51 cents per share.

BlackBerry said it expects to report revenue for the second quarter of about $1.6 billion, of which roughly 50 per cent is expected to be revenue from its services unit.

The company said it plans to refocus its efforts on the enterprise and high-end consumer markets, offering end-to-end solutions, including hardware, software and services.

Read: BlackBerry to cut 40% of staff

BlackBerry Ltd warned that it expects to report a huge second-quarter operating loss next week and that it plans to cut more than a third of its workforce.

The company, which has struggled to claw back market share from the likes of Apple's iPhone, Samsung Electronics Co Ltd's Galaxy phones, said it expects to report a net operating loss of about $950 million to $995 million (£621.1m) in the quarter ended August 31, due to writedowns and other factors.

• Read: BlackBerry to cut 40% of staff

Phone company BlackBerry has announced it is to lay off 4,500 employees, or 40 per cent of its global workforce.