MSN and Yahoo Jointly Squeeze Tencent's QQ Instant Messenger

From China Economic Net:

"Despite its dorminant role in the domestic instant messenging (IM) service, Tencent QQ recently becomes uneasy: MSN Messenger and Yahoo Messenger -- its biggest competitor – have announced that the interconnection between their respective products would be realized by the second quarter of next year. Moreover, other instant communication service providers such as Netease, Sina, and Sohu expressed their willingness to join the cooperation."

"Among nearly 40 service providers in the domestic instant messenging service market, Tencent QQ was taking the lead: QQ's registered users exceeded 430 million, among which active users were over 170 million and the record of maximum online QQ users was 16 million with a market share as high as 70%. Coming next was Microsoft's MSN Messenger with a market share of 15% and Sina's UC and Netease's Popo followed with their respective market shares around 5%. Yahoo Messenger, known as having a global user base of 80 million, had not exceled in scale in China."