Gmail has surpassed AOL as the third most visited e-mail service in the US and is poised to pass Windows Live Hotmail.

According to ComScore Between July 2008 and July 2009, Gmail's number of unique monthly visitors in the U.S. increased from 25.3 million to 36.9 million. At this rate it is set to pass the number two ranked email site, Hotmail, in seven months.

Gmail's rate of traffic growth has been increasing. Between July 2008 and July 2009 it grew at a rate of 46 per cent, up from 39 per cent during the period between September 2007 and September 2008. AOL has being dying. Its monthly visitor total declined by 19 per cent, from 45.1 million to 36.4 million. Windows Live Hotmail, which lost 4 per cent of its visitors between September 2007 and September 2008.

But with 47.1 million monthly visitors, Windows Live Hotmail is more or less where it was in September 2007, when its monthly visitor share stood at 46.2 million. Yahoo Mail is still the number one and it is still growing. Its visitor traffic, 106.1 million last month by ComScore's count, grew at a rate of about 11 per cent in 2008 and at a rate of 22% between July 2008 and July 2009.