Category: E-mail

In August 2009, 276.9 mln people used email across the US, several European countries, Australia and Brazil, according to Nielsen, up 21% from 229.2 mln in August 2008.

Property	Nov-2007	Nov-2008	% Change
Total Internet : Total Audience	54,153	59,198	9
e-mail	26,493	32,396	22
Yahoo! Mail	21,838	26,891	23
Windows Live Hotmail	8,528	7,135	-16
Google Gmail	1,714	2,720	59
Goo Mail	1,145	1,806	58
Nifty Mail	306	181	-41
Source: comScore

80% working adults maintain either a personal or work-related email account.53% have both personal and work accounts. 22% say they only maintain personal email accounts and just 5% of working adults say that their email use is limited to a work account. 45% of working Americans say they have just one personal email account, while 18% say they maintain two and 13% keep tabs on three or more personal accounts. 45% of working Americans have just one email account for work, while 9% maintain two and 5% manage three or more work accounts, according to Pew Internet Project.

More than 0.4% of all spam sent in September 2008 were targeted attacks, Cisco found. Since 90% of all e-mails sent worldwide are spam, this means 800 mln messages a day are attempts are spear phishing. In 2007, targeted attacks with personalized messages were less than 0.1% of all spam.

Young working adults are the most likely to maintain multiple personal addresses; 20% report having three or more personal accounts, compared with just 13% of those ages 30- 49. However, younger workers are no more likely to maintain multiple work accounts. In fact, more working 30-49 year olds report having work email accounts overall; 65% say they have accounts for work, while just 49% of working young adults report the same, according to Pew Internet Project.

Type of account and group	At least one	Only one	Two	Three or more	None	Don’t Know
Personal
All employed adults	76%	45%	18%	13%	24%
Employed internet users	87	51	21	15	13
Employed adults working over 40 hrs/wk	80	51	15	14	20
Work
All employed adults	59	45	9	5	40	1
Employed internet users	66	51	10	5	33	1
Employed adults working over 40 hrs/wk	72	53	13	6	27
Source: Pew Internet Project

The more money an employee earns, the more closely he or she monitors work email accounts. While 27% of those earning less than $30,000 per year say they keep constant tabs on their work email, 46% of those earning $75,000 or more report that level of monitoring. Fully 78% of work emailers in the top earning bracket say they check their email accounts at least as often as several times per day, according to Pew Internet Project.

37% of employed Americans check their email at work. Men and women tend to their work email with equal frequency. Workers ages 30 to 49 years old are the power emailers when it comes to managing work email. For instance, 40% of 30-49 year olds with work email accounts check those accounts constantly while at work, compared with 30% of those ages 50-64,according to Pew Internet Project.

Half of work emailers who are currently employed at large corporations check their email constantly, compared with just 32% of those who work for small businesses. Indeed, there is a considerable amount of overlap in the patterns seen here with wages and job types; as mentioned previously, many of those who earn less than $30,000 work in the service industry, skilled and semi-skilled jobs-professions that are not associated with high levels of internet or email use, according to Pew Internet Project

Fully 22% of employed say that they check their work email accounts “often” during the weekend, compared with just 16% who reported doing this in 2002. 34% employed email users in jobs earning 75,000 USD or more say they check their work email often on the weekends, while just 17% of those earning under 50,000 USD do so. 25% of employed email users say they check email “often” even when they have taken a sick day, compared with 17% who say they often check their inboxes before they go to work for the day, and 19% who frequently check their email after leaving work for the day, according to Pew Internet Project.