65% of marketing emails were opened on a mobile device last quarter; Android tablet use doubles

Americans overall continue to read a majority of their junk mail on a smartphone or tablet. The latest report from Movable Ink reveals that a whopping 65% of emails related to marketing were opened on a mobile device last quarter. That was up 4% sequentially and leaves only 35% of such mail opened on a desktop, which is a record low.

Breaking down the data even more, 48.23% of the mail was opened on a smartphone while 16.52% of the emails were opened on a tablet. The tablet figure is up from 15% in the third quarter. Android tablets were used to open just 1.8% of the email, but that was double the .9% figure from the previous quarter, showing strong momentum for slates powered by Google's open source OS.

The amount of marketing email opened by an Apple iPhone or Apple iPad was flat in the fourth quarter at 50%. But Android handsets and tablets saw a 40% increase in emails opened, going from 10% of the total in Q3 to 14% in the following quarter. The stats also indicated that iOS users spend the most time viewing junk email, with 38% of them spending 15 seconds or longer going through such missives. 35% of Android users spent the same time reading the email.

Desktop usage is declining throughout the U.S., according to the stats. Maine and Vermont, the last two holdouts, both opened marketing email on a smartphone more than 50% of the time in Q4. Texas was the leader with 57% of such email read on a smartphone.


Thanksgiving is a big day for mobile device usage. Last year's Turkey day holiday saw 60% of marketing email opened by a smartphone. The best day of the year for desktops was Cyber Monday when 40% of the email was read on a desktop. Still, smartphones opened the messages 45.5% of the time on that day.

source: MovableInk via FiercreMobile