BlackBerry tells customers: We're not going out of business - honest!

Smartphone maker writes to customers to tell them everything's just fine in another PR-fail by BlackBerry

Troubled smartphone maker has moved to reassure its customers - by writing to them and taking out full-page press advertisements telling them that it isn't going out of business.

The letters to key customers and partners, reproduced in 30 newspapers across the world, was intended to reassure them that the company is financially stable and "here to stay".

"You've no doubt seen the headlines about BlackBerry. You're probably wondering what they mean for you as one of the tens of millions of users who count on BlackBerry every single day. We have one important message for you: You can continue to count on BlackBerry," reads the letter.

It continues: "We have substantial cash on hand and a balance sheet that is debt free. We are restructuring with a goal to cut our expenses by 50 percent in order to run a very efficient, customer-oriented organisation.

"These are no doubt challenging times for us and we don't underestimate the situation or ignore the challenges we are facing. We are making the difficult changes necessary to strengthen BlackBerry. One thing we will never change is our commitment to those of you who helped build BlackBerry into the most trusted tool for the world's business professional."

In an interview with the Reuters newswire, the company's chief marketing officer defended the letter, which has been widely regarded as a "PR fail" for highlighting the company's current weakness.

"Our customers read a lot about BlackBerry these days, as we make the headlines quite often - this has created a lot of noise and confusion" Frank Boulben, the company's chief marketing officer, told Reuters.

"We want customers to know that they can continue to count on us - we are here to stay. We have substantial cash on our balance sheet and we have no debt. We are restructuring our cost base and this is a very painful transition, but it will make us financially stronger and we want to get that message directly to our customers."

The letter caps a disastrous year for the company, and comes just two weeks after it announced the redundancies of another 4,500 staff, or about one-third of the remaining business.

That followed the revelation that BlackBerry's Z10 smartphone, launched in January, had failed to sell as anticipated, resulting in a $960m write-down on unsold stocks. The BlackBerry Q10, which features the keyboard for which BlackBerry devices are best known, has sold better.

At the beginning of September, BlackBerry effectively put itself up for sale in a process that has so far drawn only one bid - from shareholder Fairfax, which has yet to put together a deal. Co-founders Mike Lazaridis and Douglas Fregin are also rumoured to be interested in bidding for the company, but haven't put anything firm on the table yet.

However, on the upside, the company says that some six million Android and iPhone users have pre-registered for the launch of the popular BlackBerry Messenger (BBM) service, which it is porting to alternative platforms.