Gmail Now Has 1 Billion Active Users

Gmail, Google's popular email service, crossed the mark of one billion monthly active users, said Google CEO Sunder Pichai in the Alphabet earnings call. This milestone was achieved in the last quarter where the Gmail, which was found in 2004 joined other 6 Google apps in the 1 billion MAU club. The other six are Search, Chrome, Maps, Android, YouTube, and Google Play Services.

Before 2004, Microsoft and Yahoo dominated the email with products like Outlook and Lotus notes took hold of the corporate email communication. After being pitched as an internal idea by Rajen Sheth, Google engineer Paul Buchheit developed it. And on 1 April 2004 it was announced public.

"The smart reply feature is very popular amongst the users. From all the replies it forms 10% of the volume. Our smart email app inbox is very popular too," said Pichai. Inbox was launched as an invite-only app which categorizes your emails, scans from spams and even makes smart notes and reminders.

Recently, Google's parent company Alphabet dethroned Apple as the most valuable company in the world. Interestingly, Mark Zuckerberg has also announced that Whatsapp, the popular messaging app has also crossed 1 billion MAU. Gmail's twitter account even released a short video to thank the user for using the services.