Loss of market share sees Yahoo China shut mainland e-mail service

Yahoo China's e-mail service is biting the dust.

The US web giant, which was a leading e-mail provider in the early days of the internet on the mainland, said yesterday it would end the service in four months. By August 19, all the data in the e-mail accounts of its millions of users will be erased.

Yahoo Mail has been losing market share on the mainland to domestic players. It now serves only 2 per cent of e-mail users in China, according to Hitwise data.

Data shows Yahoo Mail ranked No6 last month in market share among e-mail providers on the mainland, a rapid decline from No4 at the end of last year. The five top e-mail services are all provided by domestic companies, led by Tencent's QQ Mail, according to Hitwise.

Yahoo China's news portal has rivals, such as QQ, Sina and Sohu, which are more popular.

The firm suggested on its website that users register a mailbox with AliCloud, a core business of Alibaba Group, the mainland's biggest provider of e-commerce services.