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A Blackberry Q10 smartphone is seen in front of a displayed stock graph in this photo illustration taken in Zenica, Bosnia and Herzegovina, May 22, 2015.DADO RUVIC/Reuters

BlackBerry Ltd. is cutting jobs at offices around the world as it brings together the different parts of its shrinking smartphone business.

The cutbacks come as the Waterloo, Ont.-based company works to make its device unit profitable again, BlackBerry said Friday in an e-mailed statement. Lisette Kwong, a spokeswoman for the company, declined to say how many employees were affected. The company had 7,000 employees as of September, 2014.

"We have made the decision to consolidate our device software, hardware and applications business, impacting a number of employees around the world," BlackBerry said in the statement.

After its global market share fell to less than 1 per cent, BlackBerry narrowed the target audience for its phones to financial professionals and government workers who demand a rigorous level of security.

While reining in BlackBerry's hardware ambitions, chief executive officer John Chen is expanding in software, making more applications that work on other manufacturers' mobile devices. Revenue is still falling, but Chen has stemmed cash losses and BlackBerry began to post profit late last year.

BlackBerry advanced 2 per cent to $10.48 (U.S.) at the close in New York on Friday. The shares have fallen 4.6 per cent this year.

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Tickers mentioned in this story

Study and track financial data on any traded entity: click to open the full quote page. Data updated as of 18/03/24 4:00pm EDT.

SymbolName% changeLast
BB-N
Blackberry Ltd
-7.02%2.65
BB-T
Blackberry Ltd
-6.79%3.57

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