BlackBerry cuts 4,500 jobs

BlackBerry has revealed staggering job and expenditure cuts as part of a plan to withdraw from the consumer market.

The company reported an operating loss of between $950 and $995 million, thanks to the poor performance of the BlackBerry Z10 smartphone.

Blackberry will cut 4,500 jobs – nearly 40 per cent of its global workforce.

CEO Thorsten Heins called the changes “difficult, but necessary”, and that his company plans to focus on end-to-end hardware, software, and services for enterprise and professional users.

The latest BlackBerry 10 OS rolled out this January, and the company hoped it would be able to regain the market share it lost to touch-based devices like the iPhone with a new line of smartphones.