The established email services have long led the market, but Gmail seems to have finally reached the top as third-party analysts believe Google took the lead in October.
According to Google they already topped the market back in June, though other figures contradicted this. Figures released by Yahoo and Hotmail were closer to what ComScore believed were more accurate figures - 136 million below the 435 million Google claimed for the month.
Microsoft did release Outlook.com, and AOL"s Alto is in beta form, so there is a chance that they simply have lose a slight amount of ground they could regain in a short period of time.
Yahoo and Gmail are making their mark across the United States, Japan, India, United Kingdom and France in particular. Hotmail"s appeal lies in some of these areas as well, but it appears to be growing in popularity among Mexican and Brazilian people.
Looking at the USA alone, third-place becomes first-place with Yahoo somehow leading. It has both a higher penetration than Gmail and seven million more unique users recorded for the month. With Hotmail and Yahoo both being so close in the race for email dominance, Schema and Microsoft"s partnership with Yahoo might have been of value.