How Many People Use Yahoo Mail in 2024?

Yahoo Mail currently has around 227.8 million active users worldwide. With over a quarter billion users, it remains one of the most popular webmail services globally. In this extensive guide, we’ll dive into the key stats, demographics, history and future of Yahoo Mail.

A Thorough Look at Yahoo Mail Usage and Popularity

Yahoo Mail has been around since 1997, making it one of the earliest web-based email services. Today it delivers over 26 billion emails per day for 227.8 million users.

To put those numbers in perspective, here are some key stats on Yahoo Mail‘s popularity:

• 227.8 million global users is more than the population of Brazil, the 5th most populous country.

• 26 billion+ emails per day is about 303 million emails per second.

• It‘s the 2nd largest webmail globally after Gmail, which has 1.8 billion users. Still, Yahoo surpasses Outlook, iCloud and every other webmail competitor.

• Approximately 26% of internet users frequently use Yahoo Mail, according to surveys.

The chart below compares the number of users of the top webmail services:

As you can see, Yahoo Mail retains a substantial user base, even if it lags far behind Gmail‘s dominance.

Next, let‘s look at which age groups prefer to use Yahoo Mail.

Yahoo Mail‘s Users Skew Older

Surveys show that Yahoo Mail appeals most to older generations, especially Gen X and Baby Boomers. The age breakdown of Yahoo Mail users is:

• 19% are 18-29 years old
• 23% are 30-44 years old
• 32% are 45-54 years old
• 29% are 55-64 years old
• 31% are 65+ years old

61% of Gmail users fall into the youngest 18-29 demographic. But middle-aged adults and seniors clearly prefer using Yahoo Mail.

Professionals cite inertia and brand loyalty as reasons why these groups stick with Yahoo Mail. Many have used it for decades dating back to the 1990s internet era. To them, it simply works as their long-standing personal email system.

The chart below contrasts the age groups on Yahoo Mail versus Gmail:

Next let‘s examine the paid Yahoo Mail Plus plan.

Yahoo Mail Plus Offers Ad-Free Experience

The basic Yahoo Mail service is free for anyone 18+ to use. But they also provide a premium paid version called Yahoo Mail Plus.

Here are the key features of Yahoo Mail Plus:

• 5,000 GB (5 TB) of email storage – One of the highest free allowances in the industry.

• Ad-free email experience – No banner or sidebar ads.

• Enhanced security and spam filtering – Extra layers of protection.

• Personalized @ymail.com email address – Custom professional domain.

• Themes and stationary – Customize your inbox style.

At $5 per month, Yahoo Mail Plus provides ad-free reading and tremendous storage for a very affordable price point compared to competitors. It‘s a great option for power users or those needing to store thousands of emails.

150k+ Companies Rely on Yahoo Business Email

In addition to consumers, over 150,000 businesses use Yahoo Mail through their Yahoo Business Email plans. These are most common among US retailers – some current examples include:

• Dechra Veterinary Products
• Tekforce Corporation
• Enormous Enterprise
• SimonComputing, Inc.
• S2 IT Group

Yahoo Business Email plans come with features tailored for professional use, like:

• Custom company email addresses
• Shared calendars
• Video conferencing
• 24/7 phone support

The paid Yahoo Business Email Pro plan adds unlimited storage, unlimited aliases, enterprise security tools, and integration with business apps like Office 365.

Clearly Yahoo wants to compete with G Suite and Microsoft 365 in the business email market. And while those two dominate, Yahoo still serves a decent subset of companies.

Yahoo Earns Billions in Revenue Annually

As a large technology company, Yahoo earns substantial revenues from its email services and adjacent businesses:

• In 2020, Yahoo‘s total company revenue was $7.4 billion.

• Advertising makes up the bulk of revenue thanks to display ads and native ads on Yahoo Mail.

• Subscription services like Yahoo Plus also contribute recurring revenue streams.

• Email marketing drives additional revenue by allowing businesses to reach Yahoo Mail consumers.

While Yahoo‘s revenue has declined from its dotcom era peak, it still pulls in billions annually in large part thanks to popular services like Yahoo Mail. Email continues to be a significant portion of Yahoo‘s business model.

Next let‘s examine the demographics and geography of Yahoo Mail users.

Where Yahoo Mail Website Visitors Come From

We can analyze Yahoo Mail‘s website analytics to better understand the user base. Here‘s the geographic breakdown of visitors to mail.yahoo.com:

• United States – 54.82% of visits
• Taiwan – 4.97%
• United Kingdom – 3.96%
• Canada – 3.86%
• France – 3.10%

The US provides over half of traffic, with other English-speaking countries like UK and Canada also contributing decent portions. Yahoo Mail has maintained a loyal Anglophone user base.

How Does Yahoo Mail Compare to Gmail?

Yahoo Mail‘s chief competitor is undoubtedly Gmail. As the top two webmail titans, how does Yahoo Mail stack up against Google‘s offering?

	Yahoo Mail	Gmail
Users	227.8 million	1.8 billion
Free Storage	1 TB	15 GB
Paid Plan Storage	5,000 GB for $5/month	100 GB for $2/month
Languages Supported	27	75
Security	Norton AntiVirus	Gmail Malware Detection

Gmail has superior numbers of users, storage, language support, and features. However, Yahoo Mail has very competitive pricing, especially for higher storage tiers.

The chart below visually compares key metrics between the two:

Yahoo Mail‘s Advantages and Disadvantages

Based on these comparisons, what are the key pros and cons of using Yahoo Mail?

Pros

• Norton Security – Provides strong antivirus and anti-phishing protection.

• Generous free storage – 1 TB is hard to beat at the free tier.

• Productivity features – Calendar, notes,stationery and more.

• Customization – Themes, domains, blocking tools.

• Affordable paid plan – 5 TB for only $5 per month.

Cons

• Intrusive ads – Some find the sidebar ads distracting.

• No email previews – Unlike Gmail, can‘t view attachments before downloading.

• Deactivation policies – Accounts deactivated after 1 year inactive.

• No smart folders – Can‘t automatically sort mail with filters.

• Older interface – Dated design vs. Gmail‘s sleeker UI.

So in summary, Yahoo Mail provides excellent storage capacity and security at a fraction of the price vs. competitors. But its legacy interface and lack of preview features trails behind Gmail‘s slicker, modern experience.

Yahoo Mail‘s History and Evolution

To better understand Yahoo Mail‘s current standing, let‘s briefly recap its 25+ year history and evolution.

• 1997 – Yahoo Mail launched along with Yahoo Address Book. Email is bundled into the flagship Yahoo portal.

• 2004 – Yahoo Mail unveils unlimited storage, first major provider to do so. Becomes popular with power users.

• 2007 – Switches to 1 TB storage from unlimited due to abuse concerns. But still extremely generous for the time.

• 2013 – Major redesign with tabbed interface and social features. But some users resent the dramatic visual overhaul.

• 2016 – Yahoo Mail mobile apps launch on iOS and Android with standard mobile email features.

• 2017 – Acquired as part of Verizon‘s purchase of Yahoo for $4.5 billion. Questions emerge over future investment.

• 2022 – New features like RSVP, Read Receipts, and Enhanced Search rolled out. But interface changes remain contentious.

While Yahoo Mail pioneered web-based email in the late 90s, Gmail and other competitors have mostly overtaken it in features and design. But it retains loyal older users who still connect Yahoo Mail to its classic portal roots.

How Email Is Evolving Across Generations

To predict Yahoo Mail‘s future standing, it helps to examine how different generations use email:

• For Baby Boomers, email remains an indispensable daily communication tool for work and personal life. Many have used services like Yahoo Mail for over two decades.

• Gen X relies heavily on email, especially for professional needs. But they are more likely to mute notifications and check only periodically rather than constantly.

• Millennials prefer texting and social media for personal communication. But they still use email professionally. Many access predominantly via mobile.

• Gen Z perceives email as an outdated tool used mainly by older family members. They are mobile-first and use email infrequently if at all.

So while younger groups are moving away from email, established generations still consider it a vital digital communication channel. This partly explains why decades-old services like Yahoo Mail retain such large user bases.

Recent Developments and News

While Yahoo Mail‘s core service remains similar over the years, there have been some notable recent updates:

• New Group Features (2022) – Manage member lists and enable group email collaboration. Competes with Google Groups.

• Yahoo Mobile App Revamp (2021) – Redesigned with bottom nav bar and cleaner interface across iOS and Android.

• Private Detached Email (2021) – Encrypted messaging between Yahoo Mail accounts for added security and privacy.

• Partnership With AT&T (2019) – Allowed AT&T customers access to new enhanced Yahoo Mail interface first before global rollout.

• Flickr Integration – Photo sharing and management features added to Yahoo Mail to linked Flickr account.

So while the Yahoo Mail platform has remained relatively stagnant compared to leading webmail rivals, Yahoo does continue rolling out incremental improvements annually.

How Important Is Yahoo Mail to Yahoo‘s Business?

Yahoo Mail doesn‘t dominate webmail the way it did in the early 2000s. But with 227 million active users, it remains a significant pillar of Yahoo‘s current business strategy:

• It provides a recurring revenue stream via ad sales and upsells to paid plans.

• The large user base increases Yahoo‘s data collection on consumer behavior, which supports its ad targeting capabilities.

• It serves as a gateway to drawing consumers into the broader Yahoo ecosystem of content and services.

• It gives business users an entry point before upselling to Yahoo Small Business services.

• The Yahoo Mail brand and domain provide residual value even as the portal has declined.

So while Yahoo Mail isn‘t the centerpiece of Yahoo‘s business model anymore, it‘s still an important supporting beam. It delivers revenue while acting as connective tissue linking together other Yahoo properties.

Under the Hood: Yahoo Mail‘s Technical Details

For readers interested in the technical workings powering Yahoo Mail, here are some of the key details:

• Yahoo Mail is built using primarily PHP and MySQL on the backend, with some Node.js and React mixed in.

• Supported email protocols include POP3, IMAP and SMTP for syncing mail with different devices and clients.

• The iOS and Android apps provide native mobile access optimized for Yahoo Mail‘s features.

• Yahoo Mail uses both its own data centers as well as public cloud infrastructure from AWS.

• Mail data is stored in multi-datacenter, redundant MySQL databases for reliability and failover.

• Threat intelligence tools like Norton Antivirus scan and filter emails for security.

• Machine learning helps improve spam detection and email deliverability rates.

So in technical terms, Yahoo Mail leverages a mix of legacy and modern technologies to reliably deliver email to hundreds of millions of inboxes.

Conclusion: Yahoo Mail Remains a Major Player

It‘s sometimes easy to underestimate the dominance of legacy tech brands like Yahoo Mail. But the numbers speak for themselves – with over a quarter billion active users, Yahoo Mail is still firmly one of the largest webmail services globally.

It retains incredibly loyal users among older demographics like Baby Boomers and Gen X. And at just $5 a month for 5 TB storage, Yahoo Mail Plus is a steal for heavy email users. The service holds up well technically too.

While Yahoo Mail is unlikely to ever reign supreme again over younger-skewing competitors like Gmail, it has clearly found its place catering to its long-time loyalists. And with communication still central to Yahoo‘s strategy, Yahoo Mail should keep delivering for these users for years to come.

So if you find yourself needing copious email storage or simply missing that old-school Yahoo interface, Yahoo Mail deserves consideration. There are still plenty of good reasons why, after 25+ years, 227 million people keep using it.

Sources

TechCrunch, SimilarWeb, Enlyft, Statista, Morning Consult, Yahoo, Right Inbox, Email Analytics, The Fun Times Guide, Market, BuiltWith, Hoover‘s, CMS Wire, The New York Times, How-To Geek, Verizon, Digital Trends, Business Insider, Forbes, Lifewire, ComputerWorld, CNET, ZDNet