Chinese mainland: MSN's last user

Microsoft has shut down its instant messaging service across the whole world except on the Chinese mainland. It's reminding users to move to Skype, the real-time internet communication service it bought in 2011.

Microsoft's Messenger service, often referred to as "MSN", was first launched in 1999. It lost a large number of users as it can't keep up with the pace of the Windows system upgrading. Before closing, MSN had 100 million users. In 2010, it still had 300 million users.

In China, 6 million people use the service, accounting for only 2 percent of Chinese internet users.

Microsoft does warn however, that as the number of its users in China is also declining fast, it may shut down the service if the market becomes too small.