Chinese social-networking site Renren said on Wednesday it has signed an agreement with Microsoft's joint venture instant messaging firm, MSN, to cooperate in areas of instant messaging and social networking.

The two companies will cooperate on providing universal login access to both platforms and cross sharing of photos and status updates. The agreement will see a significant level of integration between the two platforms, Renren said in a statement.

Renren's alliance with MSN network is in the spirit of a win-win situation, Renren's chief operating officer Liu Jian said in a statement.

Last month, Microsoft said it will partner with Baidu to provide Baidu with English-language search, giving the U.S. software giant a chance to expand its tiny Web presence.

China is the world's largest Internet market by users with around 480 million netizens. Around 230 million of them use social networking sites and 385 million of them use instant messaging.

(Reporting by Melanie Lee; Editing by Jacqueline Wong)

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