Microsoft 365 Disruption Hits Email and Collaboration Services, With 130,000 Outlook Reports on Thursday
Key Facts
The disruption to Microsoft services continued through Friday, November 13, affecting a wide range of Microsoft 365 applications linked to Exchange Online and email services, according to the company, as reported by the Associated Press. The problem was accompanied by reports of outages affecting Outlook, Teams and Copilot, and Microsoft did not give a specific timeline for resolving the issue in updates cited by the news agency. The company said it had no indication that the outage resulted from malicious activity. At the peak of reports on Thursday, November 12, outage-tracking platforms recorded large numbers of users experiencing problems accessing Outlook. The developments showed that the disruption had spread from everyday work applications to email channels that companies and public bodies rely on for their operations.
The Associated Press reported that about 130,000 users in dozens of countries reported problems accessing Outlook on Thursday, before reports later declined. In a separate tally cited by Reuters via Investing.com, reports logged for Outlook exceeded 97,000 at 2:07 p.m. Eastern time that day. Downdetector also recorded more than 38,000 reports of problems with Microsoft 365 and about 4,500 reports of difficulty accessing Teams, according to Reuters. The figures reflect user reports logged on the platform, not a confirmed count of everyone affected. Microsoft said more than 430 million people use Microsoft 365 applications, putting the scope of the affected services in the context of a broad user base without implying that all of those people experienced an outage.
The disruption also affected corporate communication channels. Euronext said its corporate actions and listing teams experienced email communication problems and were unable to receive messages. The exchange urged listed companies to use the phone to communicate while the problem persisted, according to a Reuters report. This highlights the disruption of an operational channel used for correspondence between the exchange and listed entities, as email services linked to Microsoft 365 faced problems. Available information did not estimate the volume of transactions or disclosures affected, but confirmed that Euronext operational teams were unable to receive email.
The outage also extended to government bodies in Asia. Singapore’s government technology agency said government email was down and that it was working with Microsoft to resolve the issue. The Supreme Court of the Philippines said the outage affected some of its operations, including responding to email. A Japanese official also said the issue affected government technology infrastructure and that authorities had provided alternative means of communication, including phones. These cases show the effect of email outages on daily communications within public institutions, while available information did not provide a comprehensive count of affected entities or the number of countries reached by the disruption.
In the United States, industrial technology company Workhorse Group postponed its quarterly results call because of the outage, according to the Associated Press. Richemont also said it published its interim results on November 13 for the six months ended September 30, 2026. That places the Swiss company’s announcement on a date when the disruption was continuing, while its announcement was not postponed because of the outage. Workhorse’s case shows a direct effect on a financial communications schedule, while Richemont’s results were released on the date the company had announced. Available information did not say that the Microsoft disruption caused Richemont to delay its results announcement or that it faced a similar disruption.
On remediation, Microsoft said on Friday that it was seeing early signs of service stabilization and improved capacity as recovery efforts continued. But in an update carried by Reuters, it said changes implemented to improve service resiliency had not gone as expected, leaving users facing an incomplete recovery. The company added that it had halted deployments, diverted additional traffic away from the affected infrastructure and restarted impacted servers as part of efforts to restore services. Microsoft said its teams were monitoring the effect of those steps on the service, while the Associated Press reported that the company’s latest update offered little hope to those waiting for a quick fix. Available information did not specify a final timeline for fully restoring services.
The outage’s direct effect on markets appeared limited in Friday trading, according to the Associated Press, amid mixed moves in European and Asian indexes. Germany’s DAX fell 0.1% to 26,748.60 points in early European trading on November 13. Microsoft shares closed at $523 on November 12, according to EL7 data cited in MarketScreener. These prices alone are not enough to link the share move to the outage, and no documented price comparison was available to isolate the outage’s effect on the stock. The continuation of recovery efforts and improved capacity, according to the company’s Friday update, was the latest development related to the service.