• by Jess Nelson , February 1, 2016

Microsoft is the leading cloud email provider among publicly listed companies, according to a Gartner study released Monday.

8.5% of public companies sampled by Gartner researchers use Microsoft’s Office 365 cloud email service. Google Apps for Work ranked in second place with 4.7% of companies using the cloud email service, according to the report.

The Gartner research study was based on an examination of publicly available email routing records from 40,000 public companies globally.

The study notes that Microsoft is especially favored in regulated industries, such as the utilities, energy and aerospace industries. On the other hand, Google is favored by more consumer-facing companies including retail, advertising and travel.

Microsoft is also more popular in larger organizations (10 billion in revenue or more), while Google pulls in a larger share of smaller companies (50 million in revenue or less).

Interestingly, only 13% of companies use one of the two email cloud vendors. Eighty-seven percent of the companies investigated by Gartner researchers have either on-premises, hybrid, hosted or private cloud email services managed by smaller vendors.

Gartner expects the number of email cloud adopters to grow.

"Although it is still early days for cloud email adoption, both Microsoft and Google have achieved significant traction among enterprises of different sizes, industries and geographies," states Nikos Drakos, research vice president at Gartner, in a press release. "Companies considering cloud email should question assumptions that public cloud email is not appropriate in their region, size or industry. Our findings suggest that many varied organizations are already using cloud email, and the number is growing rapidly." 

Garner also predicts the public cloud services market worldwide will grow 38.4% in 2016 to reach $204 billion.