OTTAWA: Struggling smartphone maker BlackBerry has fired 250 employees in a new product testing division at its Canadian headquarters, a spokeswoman said yesterday.
“BlackBerry on Tuesday informed 250 employees of their termination” in Waterloo, Ontario, spokeswoman Lisette Kwong said.
“These employees were part of the New Product Testing Facility, a department that supports BlackBerry’s manufacturing and R&D (research and development)efforts,” she said.
While BlackBerry helped create a culture of mobile users who were glued to the company’s smartphones, many of those customers have since moved to Apple or other smartphone makers such as Samsung, mainly using the Google Android operating system.
A recent survey showed BlackBerry’s share of the global smartphone market shrank to 2.9 percent in the first quarter of 2013.AFP
