The Canadian maker of the BlackBerry mobile device, Research in Motion Ltd (RIM) said late Thursday it would be cutting 5,000 of its 16,500 jobs as revenue dropped more than expected.
Sales fell 43 per cent year-on-year to 2.8 billion U.S. dollars in the first quarter of the financial year from April. This was worse than the estimated sales of 3.05 billion U.S. dollars.
Shares fell by as much as 22 per cent on the news.
RIM’s Blackberry with its physical keyboard has been losing ground to touch-screen smartphones such as those made by Apple Inc, Samsung Electronics Co Ltd, and with the Android software of Google Inc.
It had pinned some hopes on a new operating system, with an improved display and web browsing features. The BB10 operating system was originally to be released in the autumn, but is now not expected on the market until early next year.
