Gmail Statistics Users – and Email Marketers – Need to Know
Gmail originally went live on April 1st, 2004. Given that the company was already famed for its sophisticated April’s Fools hoaxes, many in the tech community believed that the launch was just that, due to its peculiar timing and the fact that it offered far more storage than its competitors. However, Gmail was very real, and nearly twenty years later it is still going strong.
How much Google has invested in the platform since then is demonstrated by the fact that it is still operating at a high level and has been so widely adopted. Considering that the typical employee receives 121 emails every day, this is not unexpected. Your email service provider must be quick, dependable, and able to keep you working efficiently. Gmail can do all of that and more.
Let’s look at some of the most important Gmail statistics you should be aware of, especially if the email is a part of your marketing plan.
Gmail Statistics and Users
1.8 Billion Users and Counting!
With more than 1.8 billion users globally, Gmail continues to be the most widely used email service. According to statistics accurate as of February 2022, Gmail owns 27.4% of the global email service market share.
With a market share of 27.6%, the Apple iPhone comes in second to Gmail in 2022. Others with a market share of 9.1%, 8.5%, and 7.5%, respectively, are Outlook, Apple iPad, and Apple Mail.
Gmail held the top rank for the first time in 2021, according to statistics for Gmail accounts. Apple iPhone Mail has consistently been at the top of the list; in 2017, it held a 28% market share, while Gmail held a 26% share. The same pattern persisted in 2018, with market share figures for Gmail and Apple’s iPhone of 29% and 27%, respectively.
More Than Half of US Email Users Choose Gmail
There are 246 million active email subscribers in the US or 85% of the total population.
Gmail accounts for 130.9 million of all email users in the US, according to statistics on Gmail users there. User market shares for Yahoo! and Outlook are 18% (42.2 million) and 14% (34.45 million), respectively, making Gmail clearly the dominant US force in the industry.
Gmail is a Big Mobile User’s Favorite
The vast majority of Gmail users, or 75% of them, access their accounts through an Android or iOS smartphone, according to email monitoring statistics for Gmail.
Regardless of the kind of content people are looking for, smartphones have emerged as the new standard for online access. For most of us, using a smartphone is more convenient than using a desktop computer for everything from Facebook and YouTube to Gmail and other business-related programs.
It’s this reliance on mobile vs. desktop that has helped push Gmail ahead of Apple’s mail services in recent years.
Gmail is Super Popular with Younger Users
61% of people between the ages of 18 and 29 use Gmail as their primary email service provider, compared to 19% of those in the same age range who use Yahoo.
Gmail is used by 54% of people aged 30 to 44, compared to 23% who use Yahoo.
The discrepancy in user numbers narrows as people’s ages rise; 36% of those in the 45–54 age range choose to use Gmail, while 32% prefer Yahoo.
36% of people aged 55 to 64 use Gmail, whereas 29% use Yahoo.
Finally, Yahoo’s prospects improve among those over 65, as 31% of this age group choose it over Gmail, which is used by 24% of those over 65.
In all, 44% of people select Gmail for their emailing needs, whereas 26% prefer Yahoo. And overall, the average age of Gmail users is 31.
Gmail is the Choice of an Increasing Number of Businesses Too
The majority of US medium-sized enterprises that utilize email use Gmail. According to all Gmail statistics reports, 60% of these organizations choose Gmail over having their own dedicated email domain or using a different provider. And that figure rises to 90% for businesses classified as start-ups.
Gmail Can Reach the World in Its Own Language
As of 2022, Gmail usage data reveals a substantial rise in non-English speaking countries all across the world. Gmail is now accessible in 72 languages to serve its international user base, and automatic message translation is available to any user should they choose to make use of it.
Gmail Message Statistics
68.4% of Incoming Gmail Messages Are Classified as Promotions
According to the most recent Gmail statistics, the majority of messages that users receive are promotions of some kind, and as a result, they are placed in their inbox’s Promotions category. In fact, over 68% of all incoming Gmail messages may be categorized as promotions.
This is more evidence of how readily consumers are willing to give their personal information to websites and apps. Given that email marketing has an ROI of up to 3200% and that email marketing techniques have become incredibly effective, it can be hard to understand why so many businesses fail to make heavier use of email marketing, relying on newer, but often less effective, tactics such as social media marketing instead.
Gmail may be especially friendly to those sending out useful promotional messages that meet CAN-SPAM and/or GDPR rules, as Nearly 85% of these messages are delivered to users’ inboxes instead of their spam folder, where they are placed in the Promotions category 90% of the time.
The Average Read Rate of Gmail Messages Tagged as a ‘Promotion’ is 19.2%
Getting an email into a user’s Gmail inbox is one thing, but, especially for marketers, getting them to read is quite another. When it comes to messages that end up in a Gmail Promotions tab, the read rate is around 19.2%.
If email marketers can get their messages tagged by Google as an ‘update’ rather than a ‘promotion’ it may fare better. Messages tagged by Google’s Gmail algorithm in this way boast an average open rate of 28.2%, higher than both Promotions and Social (which has an average open rate of 22%)
Updates are considered to be things like purchase confirmations, receipts and shipping and tracking updates.
Very interestingly, this is the same open rate as messages tagged by Gmail into the Primary, or Important tabs. Despite the fact that the Primary tab is the first thing users see when they open the interface, according to Gmail data, only 22% of messages that are delivered to the Primary tab are read by Gmail users.
Gmail’s Huge Storage Capacity Lets Users Hoard Messages
Because Gmail offers a huge amount of storage, even to free users, many people never delete the majority of the emails they receive that interest them, choosing to archive them instead. This means Google’s own Gmail statistics say, that the average Gmail user has more than 17,000 messages in their account at any given time.
This feature does mean, that according to a 2020 Gmail user study, some 48% of users say they have archived a message to clear their inbox (something that is a productivity goal for many folks) only to return to it later when they have more time.
This can mean that a well-crafted, engaging promotional email has a chance at a ‘second life’ if it manages to catch a busy user’s eye the first time around.
The Average Gmail Account May Be ‘Worth’ Up to Nearly $4000
A typical Gmail account is estimated to be worth 3,588.85 USD. The figure is based on the average number of emails that an account can store, the average amount of time it takes to compose an email, and the time it would take to write those emails again in the event that they were lost.
The calculator aims to demonstrate the worth of a basic email backup as well as the value of Gmail’s simple archiving and generous storage limits for all users.
Most Gmail Users Have More Than One Gmail Account
According to Radicati Group’s study, an average Gmail user has 1.7 email accounts open on the service.
The majority of users only have one account that they regularly use, however a lot of Gmail users have both a personal and a business account, and there are numerous cases of people creating dozens of Gmail accounts for different purposes, often to specifically receive promotional emails into a dedicated Gmail account.
Gmail’s Spam Filters are Exceptionally Effective
From all incoming mail considered spam, less than 0.1% of it ends up in the inbox of a typical Gmail user. The algorithms used by Google to identify spam emails and place them in a separate category are continually being updated with user feedback.
Just 0.05% of communications that shouldn’t have ended up in the spam folder do so due to the spam-targeting algorithms’ optimization. As previously mentioned, improvements are continually being made with the aid of user input to decrease even this very low rate of ‘error’.
The Only Big Gmail Leak Revealed a LOT About Bad Passwords
Gmail is considered exceptionally secure – annoyingly so by some people – and, as such, has to date only ever been the subject of one large successful hack. Google revealed that 5 million Gmail login credentials had been posted on a Russian Bitcoin site in September 2014. It appears that the majority of the passwords came from old accounts that had already expired or were rarely used.
However, the hack proved useful in the long run, as it revealed a lot about just which passwords were the most vulnerable, something that remains a point of heated contention among tech experts to this day.
From that hack, Google’s data scientists were able to ascertain the following:
Lowercase letters and numbers were mixed in 42.5% of the compromised passwords.
Even though it could seem that 42.5% of the users whose passwords were exposed were wise to combine lowercase letters and numbers in their passwords, the reality was different when they looked at the most common combinations.
Examples like abc123 are on the list because they can be guessed by anyone attempting to log into the account and don’t necessarily require any skills as a hacker at all, just patience.
Only lowercase letters were used in 39.84% of the leaked passwords.
Only lowercase letters were used in over 40% of the compromised passwords. Password, qwerty, love, dragon, and welcome were the most popular ones (why dragon? We’d love to know!)
Only 8% of the compromised passwords were longer than 10 characters.
Less than 8% of the passwords exposed on the Russian forum, according to Gmail statistics on password security, had more than 10 characters. The depressing reality is that just 8% of users tried to create a little bit more challenging passwords to protect their privacy. Even more disturbingly, password and 123456 were the most widely used passwords.
Only 1% of the stolen passwords had a combination of letters, numbers, and symbols.
Only 1% of the passwords leaked to the Bitcoin forum had more than eight characters and a mix of letters, numbers, and symbols.
In the eight years since this leak, Google has tightened their own Gmail password requirements based on lessons learned. So while they may often seem extremely annoying, these Gmail statistics demonstrate very well just why the company now forces users to pay a bit more attention to creating a better Gmail password.
