BlackBerry warns of big loss in Q2,4,500 job cuts

The results will put more pressure on BlackBerry to find a buyer for either some parts of the company,or for all of it. It said last month it is weighing its options,including an outright sale,in the face of persistently lacklustre sales of its new smartphones,which run on the BlackBerry 10 operating system.

The company has sailed off a cliff, said BGC Partners analyst Colin Gillis. What do you expect when you announce youre up for sale? Who wants to commit to a platform that could possibly be shut down?

BlackBerrys Nasdaq-listed shares ended 17 per cent lower at 8.73,after falling as low as 8.01.

Waterloo,Ontario-based BlackBerry,once Canadas premier technology company,said it expects to book a 930 million to 960 million writedown in its fiscal second quarter owing to a ballooning stockpile of unsold BlackBerry Z10 devices.

BlackBerry said it expects its adjusted net loss,before giving effect to the inventory and restructuring provisions,will be in a range of about 250 million to 265 million,or a loss of 47 cents to 51 cents a share. BlackBerry sees about 1.6 billion of revenue in the second quarter

The company,which had warned that job cuts were in the offing,plans to shed 4,500 jobs. BlackBerry has already undergone a major round of job cuts over the last 12 months. It employed 12,700 people as of March,and once had close to 20,000 employees.