AMSTERDAM (MarketWatch) -- BlackBerry users around the world experienced further disruptions in service Wednesday, the third consecutive day of problems which now appear to have spread further into Asia.

Subscribers in Europe reported intermittent problems with emails, messaging and browsing on the Research In Motion Ltd. RIMM handsets with further problems being reported across Asian markets including Japan, Hong Kong, Singapore and India.

"Every one of our users is affected in some degree, some more than others," a spokesman for Vodafone Qatar said. Some customers were having trouble sending emails and instant messages, the spokesman added.

BlackBerry users across Europe, including the U.K., France, Spain, Germany, the Netherlands and Sweden faced problems when receiving email, surfing the Internet or using the BlackBerry Messenger service on their devices.

Users were experiencing disruption in services and delays of up to several hours though there were no total blackouts across Europe.

A RIM spokeswoman declined to comment Wednesday but referred to a company statement issued late Tuesday.

"The messaging and browsing delays being experienced by BlackBerry users in Europe, the Middle East, Africa, India, Brazil, Chile and Argentina were caused by a core switch failure within RIM's infrastructure," the statement said. "Although the system is designed to failover to a back-up switch, the failover did not function as previously tested. As a result, a large backlog of data was generated and we are now working to clear that backlog and restore normal service as quickly as possible."

The series of interruptions are another black eye for RIM, which is already struggling with missed profit forecasts, slipping BlackBerry shipments and a falling share price amid an intense fight for smartphone market share in North America and the rest of the world. 7