Wednesday, 16 August 2006

ISP and Webmail Services Drive Hosted E-mail Market

The installed base of hosted e-mail mailboxes is expected to total nearly 1 billion accounts in 2006, according to Radicati Group, Inc.'s latest study, "Hosted Email, 2006-2010,". The Radicati Group expects that this market will grow at an average annual rate of 19% over the next four years, totaling about 2 billion mailboxes by 2010. ISP and Webmail services will account for over 96% of worldwide hosted e-mail mailboxes in 2006. Improved Internet access worldwide continues to drive demand for ISP e-mail services, while increased storage limits and new security and search features are driving the webmail services market.

The hosted business e-mail and managed business e-mail segments will experience strong double digit growth over the next four years. Hosted e-mail services based on enterprise platforms such as Microsoft Exchange are quickly increasing in popularity. Add-on features such as archiving, wireless e-mail and e-mail security are also highly popular.