Microsoft has said that Facebook chat is now available globally to Hotmail customers.

"When we first announced the ability to chat with Facebook friends from Hotmail, we were only able to offer this to customers in six regions,” said Microsoft.

The company has since been working with Facebook to increase availability and has also made the chat feature available globally through Messenger.

"While Gmail beat us to bringing their own chat into the inbox, we have now gone a step further and brought both our own chat and Facebook chat into your inbox. Starting now, we will be displaying notifications of this update in Hotmail,” promised Microsoft.

Microsoft expects the new function to be a roaring success with "three out of four Hotmail customers using Facebook”.

Google's Gmail service has recently been losing user emails. Read more on that here.