According to some new statistics, Gmail users are young, rich, and tech-savvy (or younger, richer, and savvier than users of Yahoo Mail and Hotmail, at least). Gmail’s market share is also steadily – and quickly – rising. Yet there’s some bad news for the Mountain View team, as well: their product is getting trounced overall.
Hitwise’s LeeAnn Prescott rounded up all the pertinent statistics. “Yahoo! Mail and Hotmail are still by far the dominant web-based email services: their market share of visits was respectively 13x and 6x greater than Gmail in April 2007,” she reports. A graph below that sentence represents Gmail as a virtual flatline, with its competitors flying high above.
Google has some (percentage) points in its favor, however (as well as some shootout-style reviews). “For the four weeks ending 4/28/07,” Prescott continues, “54% of visits to Gmail were from users between 18 and 34, compared to 42% for Yahoo! Mail and 44% for Hotmail.” Advertisers do like the young ‘uns, so go, Google, go.
Advertisers also like money. “18% of Gmail’s visits were from those with average annual household incomes between $100,000 and $149,999, compared to 15% from Hotmail and 13% for Yahoo! Mail,” wrote Prescott. A slight edge, perhaps, but a definitive one.
The Hitwise Research Director then referenced someone else’s data to make her next point: “Claritas PRIZM NE social group data shows Gmail’s strength in what are typically early adopter groups, like Urban Uptown (U1), Elite Suburbs (S1) and the Affluentials (S2).”
Therein lies Gmail’s strength – those early adopters latch onto what the rest of the population will often soon embrace. As “[t]he market share of US visits to Gmail increased by 17% from February 2007 to April 2007, and was up 30% year over year, from April 2006 to April 2007,” it seems like this process could already be occurring; a typical version of Google dominance could be on the way.
In the meantime, Gmail users appear to have a few bragging rights.
