Regions

BlackBerry, a currently troubled smartphone producer, fired 250 employees from its product-testing facility in Waterloo, Ontario. As of March 2, the company has approximately 12,700 full-time workers after it cut 5,000 jobs in 2012.

"These employees were part of the New Product Testing Facility, a department that supports BlackBerry's manufacturing and R&D efforts. This is part of the next stage of our turnaround plan to increase efficiencies and scale our company correctly for new opportunities in mobile computing," BlackBerry's spokesperson said through All Things D.

In the face of rivalry, BlackBerry struggled. Industry giants such as Apple and Samsung remained on top with their increasing sales of smartphones. At the end of June, BlackBerry announced that the sales of its BlackBerry 10 failed to meet the already modest projections of analysts.

"BlackBerry will pursue every opportunity to create value for shareholders," CEO Thorsten Heins said. "Our transformation is ongoing and in no way easy. This is a long-term transition for the company but I can assure you that we are pushing very hard."

The company's earnings for the first quarter were US$3.1 billion, up 15% from US$2.7 billion in the orevious quarter. It was able to ship 6.8 million smartphone and roughly 100,000 BlackBerry Playbook tablet. In comparison, Apple reported that it sold 14.6 million iPad in its last quarter.