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.

I searched near and far for all (useful) available statistics and compiled the ultimate mobile email statistics overview with insight into the current state of mobile email.

These numbers will keep on changing, almost every day. So I will update them regularly.Last updated: Jul 2014

Feel free to share these stats with everyone, a link back would be appreciated.

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)

Daily we spend 9 minutes on email via a mobile device, that is 7,6% of the total 119 minutes we use our phone per day. O2 – “Mobile life report” UK (2013)

Mobile email opens have grown with 21% in 2013, from 43% in Jan to 51% in December 2013. Litmus –”Email Analytics” (Jan 2014)

More email is read Mobile than on a desktop email client. Stats say 47% of email is now opened on a mobile device Litmus –”Email Analytics” (April 2014)

See previous graphs: sept 2012 | march 2013 | june 2013 | august 2013

Mobile email opens have grown with 180% in three years. From 15% Q1 2011 to 42% in Q1 2014. – Campaign Monitor “Email interaction across mobile and desktop” (Q1 2014)

Mobile received the largest percentage of unique clicks (40%), webmail was a strong second with 35% – Experian “Quarterly Email Benchmark Study” (Q2 2013)

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)

68% of Gmail and Yahoo! users’ opens occur on a smartphone or tablet Litmus –”Email Analytics” (Dec 2013)

61% of consumers now read at least some of their emails on a mobile device – Yesmail “Email Compass: The Mobile Effect” (2013)

Clicks to opens in mobile email have declined from 13,6% to 11,5% over the course of 2013. Campaign Monitor “Email interaction across mobile and desktop” (Q1 2014)

Nearly a quarter (23%) of campaigns initially opened on mobile devices were later opened a second time by consumers 70% on the same device, 30% on a different device. – Campaign Monitor “Email interaction across mobile and desktop” (Q1 2014)

In nearly 98% of the emails sent, the email open is occurring on only one type of device – Knotice “Mobile email opens report 2nd half 2013” (2014).

Mobile readers who open emails a second time from their computer are 65% more likely to click through. – Campaign Monitor “Email interaction across mobile and desktop” (Q1 2014)

The Gmail App reaches 43.5% of the US smartphone users – Comscore“Reports January 2014 U.S. Smartphone Subscriber Market Share”

30% of consumers now read their email exclusively on mobile devices – Yesmail “Email Compass: The Mobile Effect” (2013)

Tablets have more quick email readers; Ipad and Android tablets both show a higher percentage with a 0-3 seconds email read length. – Movable Ink “US Consumer Device Preference Report: Q1 2014″ (2014)

Android phone users spent the most time viewing emails. Android smartphone 40,62% of users spent 15 seconds or more viewing each message. Desktop users came in second, with 37,45% spending 15 seconds or more viewing an email. Movable Ink “US Consumer Device Preference Report: Q1 2014″ (2014)

Tablets have more quick email readers; Ipad (44,22%) and Android tablets (39,97%) both show a high percentage with a 0-3 seconds email read length. – Movable Ink “US Consumer Device Preference Report: Q1 2014″ (2014)

The number of mobile e-mail users is predicted to grow 28% in 2014 and 23% in 2015 – The Radicati Group “Email Statistics Report, 2013-2017″

In 2017 1.779 Million people will access email via their mobile device.- The Radicati Group “Email Statistics Report, 2013-2017″

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)

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 percentage of total opens on phones with 42.96%.Health Care (20.65%), Consumer products (26,41%) and Associations (24.95%) display the lowest mobile open rates. – Knotice “Mobile email opens report 2nd half 2013” (2014).

Desktop clients show a consistently higher CTO rate than Phones. Tablets outperform Phones when it comes to CTO. – Knotice “Mobile email opens report 2nd half 2013” (2014).

Earlier stats: 2nd half 2011 | 1st half 2012 | 1st half 2012

36% of respondents check email, social media and texts before doing anything else after they wake up, 21% check their email before breakfast – Acxiom Digital Impact “2013 Consumer Digital Study”

32% often reads email on their smartphone during the weekend, 31% sometimes reads their mobile email on weekends. – Apsis “The email Barometer, Email on mobile devices” (2013)

54% reads email on their smartphone just before they go to bed sometimes or even often- Apsis “The email Barometer, Email on mobile devices” (2013)

49% reads email on their smartphone immediately when they wake up sometimes or even often. – Apsis “The email Barometer, Email on mobile devices” (2013)

91% of consumers check email on their mobile phones – Acxiom Digital Impact “2013 Consumer Digital Study”

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)

91% of consumers check their email at least once per day on their smartphone, making it the most used functionality ExactTarget “Mobile Behavior report” (2014)

57% said that email is a smartphone app they can’t go without — not even for one day. Other critical mobile apps: Facebook (41%) and alarm clock (31%). Apigee – “Mobile App Behavior survey” (2013)

50,8% of girls age 17-24 say email is the first thing they check online. and 55,4% check their phone first thing in the morning. Hercampus – “Ultimate college life survey” (2013)

55,6% of girls age 17-24 check their email constantly (on their phone) Hercampus – “Ultimate college life survey” (2013)

16,3% of girls age 17-24 check more than 5x per day, 16% 3-4 times per day and 10,6% 1 to 2 times per day. – Hercampus – “Ultimate college life survey” (2013)

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)

Email is the number one most popular activity on a smartphone, 78% check email on their mobile phone. IDC and Facebook – “Always Connected” (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)

Mobile email revenue and Purchases

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”

On mobile phones, email marketing generated 26.7% of sales, compared to 20.9% on desktop and 23.1% on tablet. – Custora “E-commerce Pulse Mobile report” (2014)

Email is the second biggest driver of revenue, both on mobile phones and on tablets. – Custora “E-commerce Pulse Mobile report” (2014)

The UK is the European capital of m-commerce, with 10% saying their smartphone is their main method of shopping. – Ipsos Public Affairs “Vouchercode survey” (2013)

46% says if Newsletters are too poorly designed to be read on a smartphone, it reduces the chance they buy something from the vendor – Apsis “The email Barometer, Email on mobile devices” (2013)

56% of mobile online sales originating from a marketing email take place on an iPad. Yesmail – “Email marketing compass: consumer purchase behaviour” (2013)

Women have a stronger preference for converting on tablets, with 18% of conversions, compared to 13% for men. Liveintent – “Email Everywhere: Adapting to the Mobile Nature of Email Q1 2014 Report” (2014)

Overall, 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).

Conversions on phones are 43% for age group 18-20 and only 10% for age group 65+. Email opens on phones are 51% for age group 18-20 and only 13% for age group 65+. Opens and conversions on phones decrease the older the age group is. Liveintent – “Email Everywhere: Adapting to the Mobile Nature of Email Q1 2014 Report” (2014)

Over 70% of mobile purchasing decisions are influenced by promotional emails. – Yesmail “Consumer Online Behavior Report: Digital Marketing Strategies” (2013)

Revenue per mobile click is almost double that of a desktop click. Yesmail – “Email marketing compass: consumer purchase behaviour” (2013)

The iPhone accounts for 26% of mobile email purchases; Android smartphones for 18% Yesmail – “Email marketing compass: consumer purchase behaviour” (2013)

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).

9% of smartphone time is spend on email – Experian Marketing services “Simmons Connect panel data” (2013)

Mobile email accounts for 5,1 minutes of smartphone use per day – Experian Marketing services “Simmons Connect panel data” (2013)

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)

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

Christmas is a tablet heavy holiday period with 20,10% of emails being read on a tablet. – Movable Ink “US Consumer Device Preference Report: Q4 2013″ (2014)

During thanksgiving, 59% of emails are shown on a smartphone. Cyber Monday shows a much bigger percentage of desktop opens than other holidays with 40,15%. – Movable Ink “US Consumer Device Preference Report: Q4 2013″ (2014)

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)

47,7% checks their e-mail while watching TV. Making it the 2nd most popular second screen activity just behind websurfing (49%) W3B-report – “Second Screen – Mediennutzung zwischen TV und Internet”(2014)

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

77% of consumers without a Smartphone checks their email first thing in the morning. 61% of consumers with a smartphone does the same – ExactTarget “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)

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%).

62% believes that newsletters aren’t really easy to read on a smartphone’s screen – Apsis “The email Barometer, Email on mobile devices” (2013)

28% states that difficulty to read the landingpage is a reason for them not to click on an email on their smartphones – Apsis “The email Barometer, Email on mobile devices” (2013)

29% states uninteresting content is a reason for them not to click on a mobile email marketing message- Apsis “The email Barometer, Email on mobile devices” (2013)

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)

Mobile email optimization

Responsive design (18%) is more popular than mobile aware design (16%) as a mobile email optimization technique. – Exact Target “The growing adoption of mobile friendly design” (2014)

Desktop centric design is predicted to be less popular than responsive in December 2014, with only 30% of emails focussing on desktop first. – Exact Target “The growing adoption of mobile friendly design” (2014)

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)

Reduce (30%) and Hide (26%) are the most popular mobile email design tactics for navigation bars. Reducing the number of nav items or hiding the navigation completely in retail emails when opened on mobile. – StyleCampaign “ Responsive email navigation” (Feb 2014)

Top to bottom (16%) and Shift (16%) are often used design patterns for mobile navigation bars. Moving the navigation from top to bottom or shifting them into place below logo instead of next to it when opened on mobile. – StyleCampaign “ Responsive email navigation” (Feb 2014)

Only 11,84% of newsletters use responsive design techniques to optimize their layouts for mobile devices. – Equinux (June 2013)

The time that passes between the sending of a marketing email and opening it is around 20% shorter on smartphones compared to computers and tablets. – Apsis “The email Barometer, Email on mobile devices” (2013)

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

87% of online retailers reports that they optimized mobile email or are planning to this year Forrester and shop.org – The State of Retailing Online 2013: Marketing & Merchandising (2013).

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

Typically more than 25% of email is read on a smartphone, on average it is 31% for us. Mailup – “Direct Marketing in a Mobile World: a Practical Guide”

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)

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

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)

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

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

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)

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

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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