Gmail Passes AOL Email to Take 3rd Place in U.S.

Good thing Gmail is out of beta. It 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. (Gmail is the orange line in the chart below). That puts Gmail within sight of the No. 2 player, Windows Live Hotmail, which has 47 million unique visitors. After that there is a wide gulf separating Yahoo Mail and its 106 million monthly unique visitors.

The last time we checked on Gmail’s progress was at the beginning of the year, when it seemed like it would still take at least two years for it to catch up to its nearest rivals. But so far this year, Gmail’s unique visitors grew 25 percent, while AOL’s declined 22 percent. Thus, the two crossed paths in July. (Hotmail grew only 8 percent during the same period, while Yahoo Mail increased unique visitors by a healthy 16 percent).

If Google (GOOG) wants Gmail to pass Hotmail quickly and gain the No. 2 spot, my suggestion is to keep pumping in new enhancements through Gmail Labs and to speed up the pace at which mail storage increases. Not that I am a typical user, but I am already at 97 percent of my allotted 7,358 megabytes. One of the primary lures of Gmail has always been its seemingly endless and ever-expanding storage limits. Please don’t make me pay for more storage.

Original post

Comments

[jmward22:]

I can probably guess but who is #1. You should mention this as a matter of completeness.

Also, could you increase the font on the legend of the graph. This is UNREADABLE.

Aug 16 09:34 AM

[User241885/...:]

jmward22,

If you were able to finish the first paragraph, you would have read the sentence:

"After that there is a wide gulf separating Yahoo Mail and its 106 million monthly unique visitors."

The fact that the author mentioned the company by name and then backed his observation with data (Yahoo's 106MM unique visits versus Microsofts' 47 MM and Gmail's 37 MM) should make it pretty clear who number one is. That was all in the first three sentences.

Most people would read the entire article first.

It's a matter of completeness.

PS. All of the graphs in any Seeking Alpha articles can be enlarged by simply moving the cursor on the graph and right-clicking. Try it.

Aug 16 11:52 AM

[User 338585:]

GOOG WILL NOT ALLOW FORDWARDING OF EMAIL

Aug 16 02:38 PM

[modelportfo...:]

@User 338585

You have obviously never used Gmail ..... spread false info.

Of course Gmail allows forwarding of email. Perhaps you should be reported for abuse?

Aug 17 10:18 AM

[jack dee:]

Why is the number one left out of the chart? It is silly to leave Yahoo like that

Aug 19 02:38 AM