Mobile Email Opens Now 41% & On Pace To Surpass PC By End Of 2013

The number of commercial emails opened on mobile devices is expected to be higher than PC-based emails by the end of the year. That’s according to the latest bi-annual report from the digital marketing agency Knotice, which is based on a sampling of 500 million emails sent in 11 different industry verticals (such as retail, […]

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email-iconThe number of commercial emails opened on mobile devices is expected to be higher than PC-based emails by the end of the year.

That’s according to the latest bi-annual report from the digital marketing agency Knotice, which is based on a sampling of 500 million emails sent in 11 different industry verticals (such as retail, cable and telecomm, etc.).

Knotice says 41 percent of commercial emails were opened on mobile devices in the second half of 2012 — up from 27 percent a year earlier and just 13 percent at the end of 2010.

Based on that trend, the company is estimating that more than 50 percent of commercial emails will be opened on mobile devices by year’s end.

knotice-mobile-emails

Knotice is including both smartphones and tablets in its estimate of mobile email opens, and further breaks down which devices account for those mobile opens. Apple’s iPhone and iPad lead the smartphone and tablet categories, respectively, with Android devices a distant second.

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(You can click that for a slightly larger version.)

Devices running iOS combine for about 33 percent of all commercial email opens on mobile devices, while Android devices combine for about 6.6 percent, Knotice says.

Knotice says its estimates might be lower than reality because an email open is recorded based on the download of tracking images in the email — and “show images” is not turned on by default across the board (including on some Android devices).


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About the author

Matt McGee
Contributor
Matt McGee joined Third Door Media as a writer/reporter/editor in September 2008. He served as Editor-In-Chief from January 2013 until his departure in July 2017. He can be found on Twitter at @MattMcGee.

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