RIM, Blackberry manufacturer, to cut 5,000 jobs
Visitors try out Blackberry smartphones at the Blackberry stand on the first day of the CeBIT 2012 technology trade fair on March 6, 2012 in Hanover, Germany. Blackberry has fallen behind Apple’s iPhone on the Canadian market.
Research in Motion, the Canadian manufacturer of Blackberry smartphones, announced Thursday that it will cut 5,000 jobs and delay the launch of its new platform Blackberry 10, Agence France Presse reported Thursday.
The company, which has been struggling with lower demand for Blackberries in a highly competitive smartphone market, reported revenue of $2.8 billion, down 33 percent from the $4.2 billion reported last quarter and posting a total loss of $518 million, Forbes reported.
RIM shipped 7.8 million BlackBerry phones this past quarter, compared with 11.1 million in the prior quarter, AFP reported. They also shipped just 260,000 tablets, almost half the number from last quarter.
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"I am not satisfied with these results and continue to work aggressively with all areas of the organization and the board to implement meaningful changes to address the challenges," RIM’s new CEO Thorsten Heins said in a news release, CTV News reported. "Our top priority going forward is the successful launch of our first BlackBerry 10 device."
The first phone to feature the new operating system Blackberry 10 was initially expected on the market later this year, but has now been delayed until the first quarter of 2013, BBC News reported.
Ed Snyder, a wireless telecom industry analyst and managing director of Charter Equity Research in San Francisco, told CTV News that investors were "highly pessimistic" about Blackberry 10, but said he understood why the company would push back its release.
“What would you rather have? A product go out the door in the fall and lose 25 cents on the dollar or a product go out in January and maybe break even,” Snyder told CTV.
Blackberry and RIM have been hinging their hopes of a comeback on the new operating system, which features an interface peppered with 3D effects and more crossover with Android apps, according to BBC's Technology reporter Leo Kelion.
RIM shares fell 16 percent in after-hours trading Thursday, landing at $7.63 a share on the NASDAQ, CTV News reported.
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