Fresh from unveiling a new smartphone, it looks like there's more bad news for BlackBerry. The company is planning to lay off as much as 40% of its staff by end of the year to cut costs and better position itself in the smartphone market, according to a report in The Wall Street Journal.

The company had 12,000 employees in the last count, which means as many as 5,000 workers are going to lose their jobs.

BlackBerry declined to comment saying, "We will not comment on rumors and speculation,"  "As previously stated, we are in the second phase of our transformation plan. Organizational moves will continue to occur to ensure we have the right people in the right roles to drive new opportunities in mobile computing."

The smartphone maker had struggled to compete with the likes of Apple and Samsung in recent years. Though it still looks that they are strong in certain markets.