Research in Motion said on Tuesday it had restored BlackBerry services in Europe, the Middle East and Africa, some 20 hours after users in EMEA and India first reported problems with email and BlackBerry Messenger.

Yesterday, some BlackBerry subscribers in the EMEA region experienced delays with BlackBerry services. The issue was resolved and services are operating normally, RIM said in a statement at 0550 GMT.

We apologize to those customers who were impacted for any inconvenience.

RIM is increasingly seen as a break-up or takeover target as it has been losing its status as the corporate email service of choice to other smartphones led by Apple's iPhone, and after a dismal set of quarterly results last month.

(Reporting by Georgina Prodhan; Editing by Will Waterman)