Have smartphones become the preferred device for reading your emails?
Are tablets on the decline?
This information should not be overlooked:
The efficiency of your campaigns can be affected by whether your recipients read your emails on a computer, smartphone or tablet. To help you optimize your messages for the most widely used devices, here are a few facts that will help:
1. Computer, tablet and smartphone: the trifecta of preferred devices for reading email has changed
💻 What percentage of emails are read on a computer?
Only 35% of emails are opened first on a computer in 2020 – down from 40% in 2018.
📱Are emails read on smartphones?
Smartphones are part of our daily lives, and their use for reading emails is on the rise.
In 2018, 45% of emails were read on smartphones.
By 2020, this figure has grown to 59%.
Tablets, the 3rd wheel for email reading?
By contrast, email reading on tablets has fallen sharply, from 15% in 2018 to just 6% in 2020.
(source : ecranmobile)
More and more e-mails are opened on smartphones
Optimize your emails to ensure they’re both responsive and designed to be read on mobile devices.
70% of smartphone email users immediately delete emails that don’t display well on mobile devices.
(source: alioze – web figures – 2023)
There are several issues:
- Page layout jumps
- Images that don’t load
- Poor readability…
As a result, some people have decided to test emails in HTML (i.e. raw, with no design formatting).
Apart from the device, there are also differences if your contacts are using an Apple, Windows or Android operating system.
2.The 10 most popular email services in France in 2023
- Apple : 64,31%
- Gmail : 24,50%
- Outlook : 3,24%
- Yahoo Mail : 3,00%
- Google Android : 1,37%
- Outlook.com : 0,58%
- Samsung Mail : 0,17%
- QQ Mail : 0,11%
- Orange.fr : 0,07%
- Windows Live Mail : 0,06%
(source : leptitdigital)
Apple had a 58% market share in 2022, a 6-point increase.
As a result, all other messaging services have lost shares.
Last year, Apple Mail launched an update with a specific impact on your campaigns. This update, called Apple Mail Privacy Protection, means that your open rate is probably skewed.
Read the article about the Apple Mail Privacy Protection update
Smartwatches, Google Home, smart TVs… The new ways of reading email are slow to catch on / to become popular
Have you changed the way you check your email? Some tech enthusiasts are trying out new devices, especially 3 of them:
- Connected watches let you access email on a small screen at any time of the day: in your car, while walking, while eating…
- Smart TVs let you read them on a larger screen before evening rituals, such as watching the news or a movie with your family.
- Voice assistants let you listen to emails out loud, for a whole new experience.
A rather low usage
The use of these devices for reading email is not (yet?) fully convincing.
A few challenges remain:
Emails are not always optimized for reading on these devices. And voice assistants don’t read images or ALT tags.
So it’s not always easy to use these devices to read emails.
Their use is not yet widespread enough for polling institutes to be interested in the issue.
The next step into the future: implantable devices
Apple has just announced the release of Vision pro, a virtual reality headset that lets you seamlessly switch from seeing the surrounding room to a fully virtual world.
The headset can display Mac, iPhone and iPad apps. It offers a whole new way of checking and interacting with emails, since it will be able to access Apple Mail, Gmail and all other apps to check emails.
It will be available in 2024 at an estimated price of €3,250.
Creative ways to read email
Connected jewelry, smart clothing…
Connected jewelry, such as rings or bracelets, could display discreet notifications or even integrate small screens for more advanced interaction.
Smart clothing could be equipped with sensors, enabling us to read our emails simply by looking at our sleeve, for example
The next step into the future: implantable devices
Thomas Oxley, founder and CEO of brain implant start-up Synchron, spoke in 2022:
“Several patients are testing the implant, which has been implanted into blood vessels, to be able to write emails or go online using their eyes and brain.”
The futuristic technologies of Black Mirror may well become reality.
Will 90% of Generation Z be reading their emails in the metaverse on day ?
