BlackBerry to cut 4,500 jobs

Canadian mobile phone producer Blackberry announced Friday they're expecting to report a loss of 950 million to 995 million U.S. dollars for the second quarter and will be slashing about 40 per cent of their global workforce.

The company said in a statement that it'll not only be streamlining its smartphone portfolio from six devices to just four, but it's also looking to cut half its operating expenditures by the end of the first quarter of its 2015 fiscal year. This will include cutting 4,500 jobs in their workforce worldwide -- bringing the number of employees to approximately 7,000 full-time workers.

The Toronto Stock Exchange fell sharply late Friday after news spread, with BlackBerry shares closing down 16.08 percent at 9.08 Canadian dollars (about 8.81 U.S. dollars) apiece.

The Canadian company that was once at the top of the smartphone game has been struggling to catch up with the popular Apple iPhone, Samsung Galaxy and many other smartphones that have eroded the market in recent years.

Much of the Canadian company's future was riding on the results of their BlackBerry 10 smartphones unveiled in January. And although they were well-received by critics, the devices were sold poorly in many of the company's key markets, including the United States.

Coming out a week in advance of their scheduled quarterly report next week, the company stated that because of the poor sales performance of its BlackBerry Z10 devices, they're expecting to "report a primarily non-cash, pre-tax charge against inventory and supply commitments in the second quarter of approximately 930 million to 960 million dollars."

BlackBerry's president and CEO Thorsten Heins said that while these decisions were difficult to make, they'll be necessary for the company's future.

"Going forward, we plan to refocus our offering on our end-to- end solution of hardware, software and services for enterprises and the productive, professional end user," said Heins in a statement. "This puts us squarely on target with the customers that helped build BlackBerry into the leading brand today for enterprise security, manageability and reliability."