Blackberry Announces $1billion Losses Due To Z10, To Lay Off 4,500 Workers

Blackberry continues to struggle, and despite the anticipated release of BBM to Android and iOS, the company’s future still remains gloomy. The company confirmed earlier reports of massive layoffs — some 4,500 employees will be let go by the end of the year.

To put that in perspective, BlackBerry’s total headcount sat at 12,700 as of March 2013, so this next spate of firings means that between 35 and 40 percent of the company’s workforce will soon be out of luck.

The company also pulled back the curtain on its fiscal Q2 2014 earnings results and reported a GAAP net operating loss of between $950 million and $995 million.

According to a statement released by the company, it’s largely because of underwhelming BlackBerry Z10 sales. Quarterly revenue is down dramatically too: last time around the company reported revenues of $3.1 billion and 6.8 million shipped smartphones, but BlackBerry barely managed to hit half of that revenue figure in Q2. All told, BlackBerry raked in $1.6 billion in revenue over the past three months, and revealed that it sold 5.9 million smartphones.

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