The battle between the “Big 3″ in the online mail realm really interests me because it’s amazing how over the years I have given focus to all 3: Gmail, Hotmail and Yahoo Mail. Initially I started out using a service called Visto because it offered 15 MB of space soon after its retirement I started using Microsoft’s Hotmail. I think it offered something like 3-5 MB of space and almost everyone I knew was using it at the time. Around the same time I opened up a Yahoo Mail account, which I still really like using because of the simplicity in its interface. Finally when Gmail came out I got myself an invitation almost immediately and didn’t think I was going to get much use out of it. However that was completely the opposite since I use Gmail more frequently than I do Yahoo Mail or Hotmail now. Below is a graph of my estimated email usage over the last few years and you can totally see the shift in power from Hotmail to Gmail.
Below are a few charts indicating market share between Google, Yahoo and Microsoft from Hitwise.
Earlier this year, Techcrunch did their own comparison and Gmail ended up coming out on top in their testing/research as well:
“Overall we prefer Gmail over all other webmail applications because performance (speed) is consistently fast, and emails can be tagged making search much more effective. They also offer more storage and other features, and it’s free. However, Yahoo and Live Hotmail offer more mainstream Outlook-like user interfaces (although Live Hotmail does not allow you to access other email accounts from their application), whereas Gmail takes some time to get used to. If you are looking for speed and tagging is important, Gmail is for you. If you are looking for the closest thing to Outlook online, go with Yahoo Mail. “
Google Up 43% in 2008!
July 2009 – (Source TechCrunch)
Gmail is now the third largest Web mail service in the U.S. In July, Gmail nudged past AOL Email with 37 million unique visitors compared to 36.4 million for AOL, according to comScore estimates. That puts Gmail within sight of the No. 2 player, Windows Live Hotmail, which has 47 million unique visitors. Yahoo Mail still at top with 106 million monthly unique visitors.
