Is Gmail Eating Into Yahoo Mail’s E-mail Market Share?

That Yahoo could not succeed as a search engine only because of Google that is well known. In the Internet world there is only one search engine, and that is Google. In fact, we so much identify Internet searching with Google that while suggesting somebody for searching some information in the Internet we rarely say “Search it in the Internet”. Rather, most of the times we precisely tell him “Look for the information in Google”. I feel even Ms. Carol Bartz herself prefers Google to Yahoo while looking for some information in the Internet.

However, while it failed to achieve the desired success in the search engine business, Yahoo had established itself as arguably the most preferred e-mail service provider. Every second person that I would meet used Yahoo! Mail (some of them also had accounts in Rediff, Hotmail, etc. But Yahoo! Mail was their main tool for e-mail communication). Rarely I would come across people who would use other e-mail services, like Hotmail.

However, for last 2 years or so I find Gmail has been fast expanding its hold on the e-mail market. Every second Yahoo! Mail user I know has “logged into” Gmail. And more startlingly, a good number of them have already started using the latter as their premier e-mail communication tool. And yes, let me mention that I have noticed this spread of “Gmail mania” among those people as well who had previously been using e-mail services other than that of Yahoo.

So I was just wondering whether Gmail is pushing Yahoo! Mail to a relatively less significant corner of the e-mail service market, turning it from the “Emperor of e-mail service market” into one of the various “courtiers”?