Blackberry Maker Announces Cuts As Apple, Google Bite

Blackberry maker announces cuts as Apple, Google bite

San Francisco - Research in Motion, the Canadian smartphone pioneer and maker of the BlackBerry, announced a series of layoffs Thursday as the increased popularity of rival products from Apple and Google caused it to miss its profit and revenue targets.

The company said that it earned a first quarter profit of 695 million dollars compared to 769 billion dollars a year earlier and 934 million dollars in the last quarter.

Sales tumbled to 4.9 billion dollars, some 300 million dollars short of the company's guidance of 5.2 billion dollars and 12 per cent less than the 5.6 billion in sales in the previous quarter.

The shortfall was seen by investors as a signal that the company is losing its battle to fend off the growing popularity of Apple's iPhone and the numerous devices powered by Google's Android operating system. Shares in RIM dropped some 13 per cent in after-hours trading.

The company said it would implement a "streamlining process" in the coming quarter that would allow it to accelerate new product innovations, but gave no details on the number of jobs it would axe.

"Fiscal 2012 has gotten off to a challenging start. The slowdown we saw in the first quarter is continuing," said Jim Balsillie, Co-CEO at Research In Motion. "We believe that with the new products scheduled for launch in the next few months and realigning our cost structure, RIM will see strong profit growth in the latter part of fiscal 2012

-- The Nation 2011-06-17