Research in Motion said it had restored service to millions of BlackBerry users affected by a three-hour service outage in Europe and Africa yesterday, embarrassing the company on the same day Apple launched its new iPhone.

The disruption echoed a much larger failure that took down BlackBerry service for much of the world last October and boded poorly for the struggling smartphone maker’s turnaround plans. “That RIM has experienced another outage is worrisome – something hasn’t been put right,” said John Jackson, a wireless analyst at CCS Insight.

Shares of the Canada-based RIM fell more than 6 per cent and threatened to breach their lowest point since 2003, less than a week before a quarterly financial report widely expected to show a loss.

Mr Jackson said it was “a bitterly ironic coincidence” that the failure occurred on the same day Apple started to sell the iPhone 5 to throngs of fans worldwide who had largely brushed off complaints about a new map feature. “Maybe it’s a recipe for conspiracy theories,” he said.