Microsoft shares drop 2% after global outage hits Outlook and Teams

Microsoft shares fell over 2% in premarket trading Friday to around $523 after a global outage left thousands of users without access to services like Outlook and Teams across numerous countries. The decline follows Thursday's 0.36% gain, with U.S. futures pointing slightly higher. Microsoft acknowledged difficulties restoring services, with the outage affecting over 70 countries across the Americas, Europe, Africa, the Middle East, South Asia, and Australia. The disruption began Thursday at 16:15 GMT, peaking with nearly 140,000 Outlook reports. Microsoft attributed the issue to server overload, not cyberattack, and has rerouted traffic without full success. Over 430 million people use Microsoft 365, and 90% of Fortune 500 companies use Copilot.