IDrive ran a study looking at 50,000 users who joined us recently in the month of Jan. 2015. Specifically, we took note of which email providers they use, in order to figure out which platform’s users were more likely to go the extra mile to secure their data with a backup solution, and why. Here’s what we found:
The above chart shows email platform preferences of the 50K IDrive users accounted for in our study. As you can see, Gmail users made up the bulk of our new signups. More than half of the people who signed up for IDrive within the timeframe we researched were Gmail users, while the other half was split variously between other providers.
This comes as no surprise, as Gmail became the most popular email service worldwide in 2012. But something occurred to us when we compared the most recent market share report for the three most dominant email providers with the signup shares from our study:
It turns out Gmail has 42.5% of the overall market share. But when we compared that to the percentage of IDrive’s Gmail signups (31.9K users out of 50K), we arrived at a 58% share. Interestingly, the other two major email providers saw no such increase. The share of Hotmail users who signed up for IDrive is 27.4%, almost identical to their market share, and Yahoo’s signup share is 9.1%, well below their 2012 market share of 28%. This means that more Gmail users are going with IDrive than your average internet user. It would appear that they’re not only more actively looking for a secure cloud backup solution, but inclined to choose a solution outside of Google’s ecosystem.
One would imagine users of Gmail would naturally turn to its sister-application, Google Drive, to meet their cloud backup needs. So why are so many Gmail users going with another cloud storage solution (us) instead? Moreover, what do people want today that Google Drive isn’t currently offering?
Google users crave better Cloud Backup functionality & security
Other solutions in the marketplace are utilizing 256-bit AES encryption from end-to-end, giving users true peace of mind about their data being 100% secure. There’s an even higher level of protection called private key encryption, which ensures only the user can access their data with a unique key phrase.
So why are so many Gmail users looking for more than what Google Drive offers? Is it our 256-bit AES encryption with private key protection? Our Editors’ Choice award-winning applications? Whatever the reason, when it comes to backup, clearly Gmail users want more.
