Gmail now has over 1 billion users monthly active users, revealed Google CEO Sundar Pichai during the company’s quarterly earnings call.
Pichai spoke about company’s mail service crossing the milestone last quarter and Gmail is now the seventh Google product with over billion users. The other services include Search, Android, Maps, Chrome, YouTube and Google Play services.
Achieving 1 billion monthly active users shows how Google has impacted email service after search. For long, email has been the core business for IBM and Microsoft. Email has been the most used communication tool at enterprises, and most have always relied on Microsoft Exchange services or IBM’s Lotus Notes for their email needs.
Google’s 1 billion users could well be regular consumers, although it’s unclear if enterprises are highly encouraging of their employees relying on personal email for office work. Its also worth noting that Google’s Android requires a Gmail account to log-in to use the rest of the services.
Google CEO Pichai also spoke about company’s efforts to simplify email with Inbox. Inbox was launched as an invite only mail service that organised mails better than Gmail. Pichai said Inbox users are liking the newly launched smart reply feature, and Google will scale it to a whole new level this year.
Google CEO Pichai was also extremely confident of Android flagships that will launch this year. Just a day before, Samsung announced ‘The Next Galaxy’ event for February 21. During the earnings call, Pichai also touched upon some other services like Android Wear, Android Auto and Cloud services.
He said Android Wear is set to take great shape this year with help from new partners like New Balance and Casio. He added that over 40 car manufacturers are testing Android auto on their automobiles, and its own driverless cars are set to hit the roads this year. Sundar Pichai didn’t give much on Android TV, but said it is being preferred over other services as mainstream home entertainment system.
Google’s parent company Alphabet has surpassed Apple as the most valuable company . Interestingly Google also saw 30 percent growth in spending on Google Play services. Google Play services is the model through which users buy apps and help Google split revenues with developers.
Pichai noted that this quarter was an exception with significant Google Play spending coming from countries like Brazil, India and Indonesia. Google had recently dropped the base price of app to as low as Rs 10, and has been running significant discount campaigns encouraging users to spend on paid apps and services.
- Indian Express