Shares in Waterloo, Ont.-based Research In Motion hit a six-year low Tuesday on a day when markets sold off sharply on concerns about the European debt crisis.

RIM stock traded as low as $19.30 before rebounding to reach $19.76 during early afternoon trading on the Toronto Stock Exchange, but still off 40 cents, or two per cent, from Monday’s close.

The company has been facing its share of challenges.

Earlier in October, a switch failure blacked out service for tens of millions of users of its BlackBerrys on five continents.

Last week, RIM announced that it was delaying the launch of an upgraded operating system for its PlayBook computer tablet until February 2012, as it wasn’t up to its standards at this point.

The firm has also had a number of executives resign as it struggles to hold on to market share in the face of stiff competition from Apple Inc.’s iPhone and smartphones using Google Inc.’s Android software.

That rivalry led RIM in July to say it would cut its workforce by about 11 per cent in order to reduce costs.