Microsoft Apologises for Global Outage Affecting Services in 74 Countries
Microsoft has apologised for a widespread outage that disrupted its services across 74 countries and territories, affecting millions of users worldwide.
The disruption, which began on Thursday, 12 November 2026, impacted Microsoft 365 applications including Outlook, Teams and Copilot.
Outage tracker Downdetector recorded reports from users in the Americas, Europe, Asia and parts of Africa.
In a statement on Friday, 13 November, Microsoft said: “We are deeply sorry for the disruption this incident has caused our customers and partners. We know the trust they place in our services and take that responsibility extremely seriously.”
The company confirmed the outage was caused by a technical issue introduced during an earlier network capacity upgrade that surfaced after a recent network change.
It ruled out any link to cyberattacks or artificial intelligence agents.
Microsoft reported broad recovery and stability across its services, with email queues significantly reduced and approaching normal levels. Full restoration was continuing in remaining regions.
The outage affected governments, healthcare services, schools, courts and businesses in multiple countries.
By Oyinkansola Shittu.
