A major global outage affecting Microsoft services, including Outlook and Teams, is continuing, with thousands of users experiencing difficulties accessing their emails and other applications.

The disruption began on Thursday and has affected Microsoft’s wider 365 platform, including its email, workplace messaging and cloud-based services.

At its peak, outage monitoring website Downdetector recorded almost 130,000 reports of problems accessing Outlook in the United States.

Users have reported being unable to send or receive emails, while others have experienced difficulties loading their inboxes.

Microsoft says the problems are linked to a significant number of servers becoming unexpectedly unavailable, placing additional pressure on the remaining infrastructure.

In its latest update, the company said efforts to improve the availability of its services were not progressing as expected.

It is now exploring alternative ways to increase capacity and restore normal operations.

The outage has also affected businesses and government agencies internationally, with some other technology providers reporting problems with services connected to Microsoft’s systems.

Microsoft has indicated that the disruption is not believed to be the result of a cyberattack.

The company says it is continuing to work to restore services, but has warned that users may experience a gradual recovery as affected systems come back online.