According to Eric Jing, head developer of the Xiaobing project, Microsoft wanted to use the WeChat-based chatting tool to tap into the mobile searching market.

"We will be able to provide search results via WeChat to smartphones that do not have Bing installed once our search functions are fully available on Xiaobing," Jing told China Daily earlier. He said it is also possible to add more language skills to Xiaobing's "resume" in the future.

Microsoft may find it isn't wise to challenge Tencent on its own turf, because WeChat is the only sizable social-based instant messaging platform in the country.

WeChat's user numbers had soared above 600 million as of last year.

By contrast, Bing has been a bit player among search engines in China since its official launch in 2009. Its April market share was a scant 0.9 percent. Even Google Inc, which has no official search service on the Chinese mainland, has a larger market share, according to Internet data keeper #.

Local search providers, including Baidu Inc, so.com and sogou.com, controlled nearly 98 percent of market share as of April, said #.

Analysts said Bing must vigorously expand in the mobile market, which they said wasthe last slim chance for Bing and other small search providers to survive.

"New entrants will find it extremely difficult to shake the top four providers in the market, especially when every player knows mobile Internet is the future," said Zhang Xi, an analyst at Beijing-based iResearch Consulting Group.

Online search providers reaped more than 11.6 billion yuan ($1.9 billion) in revenue during the first quarter of this year, an increase of 56.6 percent year-on-year, according to iResearch. Baidu took more than 80 percent of the industry revenue, while Bing's earnings were next to nothing, data showed.

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