The ultimate mobile email statistics overview

Mobile email is on the rise, as more and more people own a smartphone or a mobile device like a tablet.

We compiled all (useful) available statistics and compiled the ultimate mobile email stats overview with insight into the current state of mobile email usage.

These numbers will keep on changing, almost every day. So I will be updating them, feel free to share these stats with everyone.

Ultimate mobile email usage statistic

The ultimate mobile email usage stat, this is all you really need (party disclaimer at the end of this post).

More detailed mobile email statistics

90% of smartphone owners access the same email account on mobile and desktop. ExactTarget – “The 2012 channel preference survey” (2012)

More email is read Mobile than on a desktop email client or via webmail. Stats say 43% of email is now opened on a mobile device Litmus –”Email Analytics” (March 2013)

See the september 2012 graph

23% of emails with images loaded comes from mobile, 69% from desktop and 5,5% from tablet – LiveIntent “Opens by device Jan 2012 vs Jan 2013″ (2013)

45% of holiday season emails are being opened on mobile – up slightly from before the season began – Experian – Hot holiday trends (2012)

68% of UK smartphone owners used their device to check email in the past 30 days. Only text messaging was more popular (92%) Nielsen – “The mobile Consumer” (Feb 2013)

The percentage of people that use on E-mail on their smartphone is very different per country. Ranging from 75% in the last month in US, to 17% in India Nielsen – “The mobile Consumer” (Feb 2013)

78% Of US Email Users Will Also Access Their Emails Via Mobile By 2017 – Forrester Research “Email Marketing Forecast 2012 – 2017″ (2012)

Mobile purchasing decisions are most influenced by Emails from companies (71%) only surpassed by the influence of Friends (87%). – Adobe “2013 Digital Publishing Report: Retail Apps & Buying Habits”

The financial industry consistantly shows less mobile opens than other industries – Inbox Marketer “Mobile vs Desktop” (2013)

The total (non-unique) Mobile Email open and click rates differ very heavily per industry, with relative differences over 200% and more. Consumer services has the highest average total opens on phones with 40.14%. B2B (14.56%), Health Care (16.16%) and Associations (17.78%) display the lowest mobile open rates. – Knotice “Mobile email opens report 2nd half 2012” (2013)

See 2nd half 2011 stats | See 1st half 2012 stats

17.71% of users will open email on a mobile device once or more per month. With iOs devices like iphone, ipad and ipod account for 16.01% and Android for 1,70%. These are non-exclusive stats, as many people use more than one emailclient. Campaignmonitor –”Email client popularity” (June 2011)

79% uses their smartphone for reading email, a higher percentage than those who used it for making calls. Adobe – “2013 Digital Publishing Report: Retail Apps & Buying Habits” (2013)

There is probably an Android smartphone email user in your database for each iOS smartphone user you identified. 52,5% of smartphone users own an Android device – Brightwave Marketing “Ignore Droid at your own Risk” (2013)

82% of smartphone users check and send email with their device. Google – “The Mobile Movement” (April 2011)

52% of companies let people sign up for email or text Alerts about products and offers as a path to purchase in mobile. Chief Marketer – “2012 Mobile Marketing Survey” (2012)

Did you know that there are differences per gender in how they treat their mobile email?

74% of women use Gmail for Android, 62% of men instead of their default Android email client – Brightwave Marketing “Ignore Droid at your own Risk” (2013)

Men open 20% more emails on mobile, but WOMEN click 10% more often on mobile e-mail TailoredMail – “It’s time to wake up and mobilize!” (2012)

5.3% of Mobile phone time is spent on Email/ IM if devided by Function. Nielssen – “State of the Media” (2011)

With 38%, an interesting subjectline is the most important reason for opening email on your mobile phone, while saving time is least important with 23% STEEL – “Are your emails ready for mobile devices?” (2012)

Users who have recently read email on their mobile will do so again about 45% of the time – Litmus “Saving Email for Later: Opens Across Devices & Environments” (2012)

43% of mobile email users check email four or more times per day, compared to 29% of those who do not use mobile email. – Merkle “View From the Digital Inbox 2011″ (2011)

3.3% of users view a single email in more than one environment (both mobile and either desktop or webmail) – Litmus “Saving Email for Later: Opens Across Devices & Environments” (2012)

More than 35% of UK smartphone users check their work email address in their free time. 10% do so while on holidays – Firstsource Solutions (July 2011)

57% of smartphone and tablet owners checked email while watching a TV program. 59% during commercials Nielssen – “State of the Media” (2011)

41.09% of emails are opened on a mobile operating system or device. – Knotice (2013)

24% of companies aren’t optimizing their email creatives for mobile viewers in any way. – Experian “Acquisition and engagement tactics” (dec 2012)

12% of companies use media queries to optimize email creatives for mobile. – Experian “Acquisition and engagement tactics” (dec 2012)

18% of companies have changed the dimensions of email creatives to optimize for mobile. – Experian “Acquisition and engagement tactics” (dec 2012)

75% of marketers are planning to add mobile to their marketing mix.  This is not specifically email or advertising related.  Forrester Research – “2011 Mobile Marketing prediction” (2011)

77% of consumers without a Smartphone checks their email first thing in the morning. 61% of consumers with a smartphone does the same – Exact Target “Subscribers, Fans, & Followers part 20″ (2013)

10% Of Ipad users say Mobile is their preferred device to read email and 9% for sending it. – Perion “iPad Owners Survey” (2013)

24% of companies uses email and non-mobile sign-ups as a metric to gauge mobile marketing success. Chief Marketer – “ 2012 Mobile Marketing Survey” (2012)

48% of marketers don’t know what percentage of their emails are read via a mobile device eConsultancy – “Email Marketing Industry Census” (2012)

39% had no strategy for mobile email. eConsultancy – “Email Marketing Industry Census” (2012)

More than one-half (56%) of US consumers who have made at least one purchase using their smartphone have done so in response to a marketing message delivered via mobile email -  ExactTarget “Mobile Dependence” (2011).

Redemption rates for mobile coupons are 10 times that of mail- or newspaper-distributed coupons. Borrell Associates – “The 2010 U.S. Local Mobile Advertising & Promotions Forecast,” (april 2010)

Overall, some 16% of US smartphone owners say they have complete at least one purchase as a direct result of a marketing message they received on their smartphone (including other channels like sms and aps). -  ExactTarget “Mobile Dependence” (2011).

Mobile Email usage varies with the day of the week. With more than average number of opens on Friday, the mobile email is most often used in the weekend. – Return Path “The future of mobile messaging” (2011)

80% of consumers finds reading marketing emails on their mobile less easy than on a PC.
- Edialog “The future of mobile messaging” (2011) Most common complaints were:
* having to scroll across a page to read all the information (15%),
* too much textual content (9%),
* images not rendering properly (8%)
* and a failure for all the information to download (7%).

Special offers (27%), vouchers (21%) and realtime tracking (21%) are most preferred email types to receive on mobile. Newsletters are the fifth most preferred type with 12% of respondents saying they like to view that email type on their mobile the most. - Edialog “The future of mobile messaging” (2011)

If an email does not display correctly, 69,7% wil delete it immediately. BlueHornet “Consumer Views of Email Marketing” (2012)

Optimization

14% of companies and 24% of agencies are designing emails specifically for mobile – eConsultancy “Conversion Rate Optimization Report” (2011)

Despite the fact 13% of execs are now primarily checking their email via a mobile device, less than half of websites/emails are optimized for customers to view or respond to via handheld resources – MarketingSherpa “Email Benchmark Report” (2012)

58% of marketers see Mobile smartphones and tablets affecting their email program in the next 12 months. Up from 46% a year earlier. – MarketingSherpa “Email Benchmark Report”(2013)

Party disclaimer:

Be sure to share at parties, but know that there are multiple ways of measuring the number of opens and marketsize of mobile email. You could measure all opens, unique opens or opens during a period of time (e.g. during a month)

Also the the average use of email on mobile devices isn’t the same as the use of mobile email for your target audience or email list. The only discussion and party safe mobile email stat, compiled out of all stats available is noted below.

Additional stats about email on mobile from 2010 / 2011

16 to 26% of Europeans will check email on a mobile device once or more per day, depending on country. 26% (NL, DE) to 40% (UK, Italy) of Europeans check email on their mobile at least once a month. eCircle – “European Social Media and Email Marketing Study” (Dec 2010) See chart

Iphone (71.98%), Ipad (14.95%) and Android (8.24%) are the biggest in the Mobile Email market.  See chart Campaignmonitor –”Email client popularity” (June 2011).

After correcting the Campaignmonitor numbers for automatic display of visuals, the corrected Email client popularity is Iphone (42,31%), Android (39,67%), Ipad (9,62%). MarketingXD – “Mobile is 4% of email, not 20″ (2011)

Year over year, we have seen a 132% increase in the number of emails being opened on mobile devices. Litmus– “Big thanks to Justine Jordan metrics”  (June 2011)

38,5% of mobile internet internet time is spent using mobile email. Nielsen – “Mobile Media View Internet” (May 2010)

Some 70 million US consumers accessed email through a mobile device, with 43.5 million doing so on a near-daily basis. Comscore– “Mediametrix”  (November 2010)

31.6% of US marketers said having an optimized mobile marketing experience for customers is important. – eROI “The Current State of Social, Mobile, & Email Integration” (2010)

22% of US marketers surveyed said that mobile marketing is “very important” to their overall marketing strategy; 26% said “important”; and 28% said “somewhat important.” Only 8 percent said mobile marketing is “not important.” -R2integrated “Mobile Media Survey” (2010)

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