BlackBerry fixes outage that affected some Canadians and users in Asia-Pacific

WATERLOO, Ont. – BlackBerry (TSX:BB) says a service outage that affected some of its users in Canada and the Asia-Pacific region has been fixed.

However, smartphone maker wouldn’t say how many customers were affected overall.

Nor did the Waterloo, Ont.,-based concern say how long the outage lasted or what caused it.

Website Canadianoutages.com, which keeps track of consumer complaints about companies that provide Internet and wireless services, showed that complaints about BlackBerry’s instant messaging and email services started in the morning.

The complaints lasted until late afternoon.

BlackBerry has suffered from several outages in recent years, including a short one last May and an outage that lasted for four days in October 2011.

“BlackBerry can confirm that all service issues impacting some users in Canada and the Asia Pacific region have been resolved. Thank you for your patience,” spokeswoman Kiyomi Rutledge said in an email response to queries about the problem.

The outage comes at a time when the company is trying to turn around its fortunes after laying off thousands of employees amid stiff competition in the smartphone market from Apple and makers of devices using the Android operating system.

It has been trying to focus on its core market of business and governments, which value BlackBerry’s secure email.

The company also recently unveiled a number of new products and services, including a low-cost smartphone that will be released in April and an update to its flagship server software for organizations.

New CEO John Chen as brought in late last year after talks to sell the company collapsed.