Report: More Layoffs at BlackBerry

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Anonymous sources are saying that BlackBerry may soon begin another round of layoffs in response to the company’s continuing poor financial performance. The company held a shareholder meeting Tuesday where it discussed recent losses.

The Wall Street Journal’s Will Connors broke the story, writing, “As part of its restructuring, the company is planning to cut more jobs across middle management in the sales and support divisions, say people familiar with the matter, on top of the 5,000 layoffs last fiscal year. Part of the latest cuts included Richard Piasentin, the company’s vice president for sales in the U.S., who was fired last month, these people said. A BlackBerry spokesman confirmed that Mr. Piasentin is no longer with the company, but declined to comment on layoffs.”

VentureBeat’s Ricardo Bilton noted, “The layoff rumors come shortly after BlackBerry’s annual shareholder meeting, where BlackBerry CEO Thorstein Heins, again, asked shareholders to be patient with BlackBerry’s recovery, which he says is just getting started.”

Mashable’s Todd Wasserman reported, “BlackBerry’s first-quarter revenues, reported last month, came in at $3.1 billion, which was below Wall Street’s consensus estimate of $3.36 billion. The company also reported a net loss of $84 million for the quarter, or -$0.13 a share — an unpleasant surprise, considering that analysts had expected BlackBerry to report a net profit of $0.07 a share. The report led to a 25% drop in BlackBerry’s stock price.”

InformationWeek’s Eric Zeman added, “In its most recent quarterly report, BlackBerry revealed that it sold just 2.7 million BB10 smartphones. That number was at least one million fewer than investors expected. Some investors called the rollout of these two devices a ‘disaster.’ ‘Were we perfect at the launch?’ responded Heins. ‘Probably not. Was it a disaster? I don’t think so.'”