Gmail tops in India as Yahoo! loses ground

According to a survey, Gmail is now the most popular e-mail service in India, having ended the 10-year reign of Yahoo Mail. ViziSense, an online audience measurement and analytics platform, has found that Gmail had more than 18 million unique users in September, as against 16.8 million users for Yahoo Mail.

The popularity of Gmail has been steadily growing month-on-month, as indicated by the increasing number of unique users. During September, Gmail witnessed an increase of almost 3 per cent in traffic compared to the previous month.

Yahoo! meanwhile saw a decline of 8 per cent. On the other hand, MSN Mail – so far the lame runner - saw an increase of nearly 6 per cent in traffic since August.

According to ViziSense - an internet user measurement agency that tracks India's top websites on a monthly basis - the number of unique users of Yahoo Mail dropped from 18.2 million in August to 16.8 million in September.

At the same time, Google's service gained ground from 17.7 million users to 18.2 million users in the same period, surpassing its rival by 1.4 million unique users.

The study further notes that Google had a 74 per cent reach among India's 47 million internet users, compared to Yahoo's 58 per cent in August.

''The popularity of Google over the past few years has created a brand which today extends beyond just search and it is this brand that has helped strengthen Gmail's usage,'' said Prashant Mehta, chief operating officer of Komli Media Pvt Ltd, the internet ad agency that owns ViziSense.

Google says features tailored to the needs of Indian users gave it an edge. ''The launch of Gmail in eight Indian languages was a positive step in this direction,'' said Vinay Goel, head of products, Google India. Yahoo! declined to comment on the ranking.