Gmail Growth

Interesting story on the growth of Gmail. While I'm a big fan of Gmail, I think the numbers (43% versus 11%) and the chart (shown above) are a bit deceiving. Maybe more than a bit. Based on the numbers in the article, we're looking at raw growth numbers of roughly 10 million for Yahoo and just under 13 million for Gmail. So at the pace both services are growing - Gmail gains 3 million more users per year - it would take Google 20 years to catch up to Yahoo. Notice in the chart that Yahoo isn't even shown. If it was, we would really see the huge gap between Gmail and Yahoo. Of course if Yahoo starts to see a serious decline and the trend continues for Gmail then we could see the two curves above converging much faster.

Gmail Grew 43 Percent Last Year. AOL Mail And Hotmail Need To Start Worrying.:

Google launched Gmail only four years ago, and it is now the fourth most popular e-mail service on the Web after Yahoo Mail, AOL Mail, and Windows Live Hotmail. In 2008, it saw some serious growth in the U.S. Google doesn’t break out the number of Gmail users, but comScore estimates unique monthly visitors. According to the latest stats, the number of people visiting Gmail grew 43 percent last year to 29.6 million. In contrast, the much more massive Yahoo Mail grew 11 percent to 91.9 million uniques. AOL Mail finished in second place for the year with 46.6 million uniques (plus another 7.2 million visitors to AIM Mail), while Hotmail actually declined 5 percent to 43.5 million.

How can Gmail keep growing at such a fast rate, when the other email services seem to be stagnating? Maybe it’s because Gmail is evolving at a faster rate.