2021 Email Usage Statistics

With the internet becoming increasingly accessible globally, the number of emails sent and received each day continues to increase every year. While roughly 306.4 billion e-mails were estimated to have been sent and received each day in 2020, this figure is expected to increase to over 376.4 billion daily emails by 2025.

The total number of business and personal emails sent and received each day is forecast to grow to over 347 billion by year-end 2023. This figure is expected to increase to over 376.4 billion daily emails by 2025 (Source: Statista).

As the internet becomes more accessible to a greater number of people around the world. Email usage is also expected to increase. 

The number of worldwide email users is now over 4 billion and is expected to grow to over 4.3 billion users worldwide by the end of 2023. Since 2019 over half of the world’s population uses email.

The number of worldwide email accounts is expected to continue to grow at the rate of 3% per year.

90% of Americans aged 15 and over have active email accounts. 99% of users check their email at least once per day. More people use email on a mobile device with 42% of email now opened on a mobile device.

Mobile devices are more popular than their desktop counterparts when it comes to email usage.  Most people in the world consume online content primarily through their mobile devices, and email is no exception. It shouldn’t come as a surprise, then, that both Apple Mail and Gmail lead the pack among email clients. Another trend that we have recently seen with email is that more people are using Webmail over email clients. 

Email marketing generates $42 for every $1 spent, which is an astounding 4,200% ROI, making it one of the most effective business marketing options available.

In a survey by Campaign Monitor, small business owners ranked which forms of marketing were the most effective. What worked for them and what didn’t?

Ensuring your outbound email marketing campaign makes it to the inbox is paramount to success. Digital marketers often know the key to boosting deliverability rates – maintaining clean lists, keeping subscribers engaged, building a good sender reputation, etc. It is also important to use an email marketing solution that has a high email deliverability rate. These providers were tested in March 2021 and the average deliverability rate is listed. 

Email-based phishing and malware persist as a major security threat, with billions of attacks now occurring daily. In the first three months of 2020, according to a Phishing Benchmark Global Report, remote workers were hit with 30,000 more “suspicious messages,” and a 667% increase in COVID-related spear phishing. 

The most widespread malware in Q3 mail traffic was assigned the verdict Trojan-PSW.MSIL.Agensla.gen (8.44%). In second place was Exploit.MSOffice.CVE-2017-11882.gen (5.67%), while Trojan.MSOffice.SAgent.gen (4.85%) came third.

The most widespread malware in Q3 mail traffic was assigned the verdict Trojan-PSW.MSIL.Agensla.gen (8.44%). In second place was Exploit.MSOffice.CVE-2017-11882.gen (5.67%), while Trojan.MSOffice.SAgent.gen (4.85%) came third.

Attackers largely focus their phishing and malware attacks on North America and Europe and both classes of attacks, the United States receives the highest volume of email attacks. This data was taken during a five-month observation window.

Cybersecurity researchers at Check Point analyzed phishing emails sent during Q4 of 2020 and found that 43% of all phishing attempts mimicking brands were attempting to pass themselves off as messages from Microsoft. Microsoft is a popular target because of Office 365’s wide adoption among enterprises. By stealing these credentials, criminals aim to intrude and access corporate networks.

During 2020, we analyzed the percentage of incoming email that was flagged as spam. The largest share of spam was recorded in February (56.32%). The average global mail traffic was down 1.27 p.p. against the previous reporting period.