The unusual step will see messaging giant Tencent, search engine Sogou, software company Kingsoft and several others offer technical support for XP including system upgrades and security services, said Xinhua. This so-called "hedge" against attack will be built before the April 8 XP shutdown date and could last even longer than three years if large numbers of Chinese users still haven't transitioned to another OS by then. This could take some time. At the end of 2013, Windows XP still had a market share of around 50 per cent in China.