The penetration rate of instant messaging (IM), a real-time communication software, has topped 90 percent in Taiwan, according to a report reaching here from Taipei on Saturday.

The results of a survey showed that as high as 92.7 percent of the survey's respondents said they had used IM software over the past month, with 50.1 percent of respondents saying they had installed two or more types of IM software.

The survey was conducted on March 11-12 by Insight Xplorer, a market research company, on 1,524 Internet users between the ages of 15 and 39.

It was found that IM software is most frequently used by younger Internet users, with 99 percent of those in the 15-19 age group using the software compared with 81.3 percent among those in the 35-39 age group.

Of all the IM software available in Taiwan, MSN Messenger remains the most popular, used by 77.1 percent of Internet users.Yahoo! Messenger is used by 56.1 percent of Internet users, and Skype 20.1 percent.

By age, MSN Messenger is most favored by Internet users in the 20-29 age group, Yahoo! Messenger is used by 92.4 percent of thosein the 15-19 age group and Skype is attractive to 25.4 percent in the 30-34 age group.