Blackberry maker Research In Motion suffered service problems in Europe on Friday, just as its key rival Apple started sales of its new iPhone around the world.

"Some users in Europe, Middle East & Africa are experiencing issues with their BlackBerry service," the Canadian firm tweeted from its British twitter account.

Last October a system-wide failure of the service left tens of millions of frustrated BlackBerry users on five continents without email, instant messaging and browsing.

(Reporting By Tarmo Virki; Editing by David Holmes)