Yahoo Inc. announced on Monday an integration between mail and instant messenger, a move to consolidate its leading position on web mail and online communication.

John Kremer, vice president of Yahoo! Mail, told Xinhua that the integration will take effect in the United States from Monday while overseas user would get the new product within three months.

After the integration, Yahoo! Mail users can chat in real-time and put online messages into mail by simply click the "Convert" key.

"It's a really seal integration between mail and messenger. Within the mail interface, you now have the ability to chat with your contacts, and you also have the ability to convert back and forth between mail and messenger. You can choose to send message or mail as you like," said Kremer.

Yahoo! Mail, who has provided mail services since 1997, was No. 1 web mail provider in the world with 249 million users in 2006, according to comScore Media Metrix.

MSN's Hotmail, a major competitors of Yahoo! Mail, with 236 million users, was listed as the second major provider followed by AOL and Google with 50 million and 60 million users respectively.

To keep its leading role in mail service market, Yahoo! Mail has provided several new services such as drag-and-drop support, right-click menus, RSS feeds and a preview pane, and launched Yahoo! Mail Beta, a significantly different and advanced version, since 2004.

Yahoo! Mail Beta is currently under heavy development and is set to replace the current version of Yahoo! Mail when it is completed.