I wrote about GMail a while ago. In that post I complained GMail is not reliable in China. One reason I can think of is that Google has not moved its servers to China. It has no plan to do so in the near future according to CnAnalyst. In this Chinese post Keso says the China’s contribution to Google’s revenue is not material at this time. This could partly explains why they have not moved the servers. Google is still building traffic (not monetizing) in China because they have plenty of cash now. Another reason is they want to protect their IP (intellectual property).
I noticed this GMail thing is quite popular among Chinese geeks (guys and girls who are into technology and gadgets). It seems to me a bit odd they are so loyal to Google even though the GMail service is not available all the time. Maybe because it’s a Google thing (quote Jeep’s ad here, you would not understand 🙂