BlackBerry cutting 4,500 jobs as its Q2 2014 revenues became 50 percent less than analysts expected

BlackBerry just officially revealed that it’s cutting 4,500 jobs. This comes as its Q2 revenues was declared to be $1.6 billion compared to $3.06 billion estimated by analysts, along with selling 3.7 million smartphones. It’s also taking a loss of $950 million to $995 million for the quarter.

This devastating news also comes on top of BlackBerry’s announcement that it planning on becoming more focused on being a niche market.

Around noon PST today, trading of the company’s shares were halted pending an expectation of news. At the time, it had been trading at $10.27 per share. Upon hearing the news, once trading resumed, its stock price fluctuated widely and is now trading at around $8.50 per share.

Certainly BlackBerry hasn’t seen that much good news recently — just this week, as it released BlackBerry Messenger for iOS and Android along with the Z30 smartphone, there were reports saying that the company would be eliminating 40 percent of its workforce. Now that’s true.

The Canada-based company has been exploring potential acquisitions for a while and it was reported this month that potential interested suitors wouldn’t want all of BlackBerry, just its operating system and keyboard patents. This is at least the third consecutive quarter that the company has experienced this year — in Q4 2013, it posted a $84 million loss and shipped 6.8 million smartphones, and in Q1 2014, it saw a loss of $67 million and shipped another 6.8 million phones.

Photo credit: Ethan Miller/Getty Images