690 mln e-mail boxes worldwide, 67% of them hosted

A new study by The Radicati Group examines the growing hosted e-mail market, which currently accounts for about 67% of all email accounts, worldwide. On the consumer side, the study notes that 2004 was a year of great changes in the ISP/Webmail space after Google introduced a free 1GB email service. Many competitive ISP/Webmail providers have been quick to raise their own storage limits and functionality in a bid to stay competitive and retain valuable customers. The worldwide installed base of ISP/Webmail accounts is expected to reach 973 mln mailboxes in 2008, up from 690 mln today.