Hotmail hits 5 million downloads on Android in less than 5 months

Well, we didn’t expect this. Android, a Gmail-focused mobile operating system has proven to be fertile ground for Hotmail. Today, Microsoft announced that it has hit a new belt-notch:

The official Hotmail app for Android has reached another milestone this past weekend – over 5 million downloads in less than 5 months.

— Hotmail (@hotmail) February 22, 2012

Now, it is well known that Hotmail remains the world’s largest webmail provider, but I assumed, perhaps incorrectly, that the average user of the service was not exactly the most tech savvy, and therefore likley not a smartphone user. Android, it seems, has become a mobile line for the everyman.

What does the number mean? 5 million is simply a large, round figure, but it does indicate that writing Hotmail off for dead, given the dominance of Gmail among us in the technologically elite, is a bit too hasty; Hotmail remains popular among the masses.

We prefer Gmail to Hotmail here at TNW (we all use Gmail, and no one uses Hotmail), but it’s nice to see that the rival platform still has juice, as competition drives innovation. Now, we want to know the percentage of Windows Phone users that run Gmail on their phones – that would be an interesting statistic.

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H/t TheRomit