Digital 2025: email is still essential
In stark contradiction of media click-bait, email continues to play a central role in the world’s online activities – even amongst younger generations.
The latest intelligence from data.ai indicates that Gmail is still the world’s leading email provider, with roughly 2 billion handsets accessing the platform’s mobile app each month.
And for added context, that figure doesn’t include the people who access Gmail accounts via the “integrated” email inbox on iPhone inboxes, nor does it include people who use Gmail in web browsers.
However, despite these impressive numbers, email is considerably bigger than Gmail.
Get the message
Let’s start by clearing up some misconceptions, because marketers often have a distorted perspective on email use, especially when it comes to younger audiences.
At a worldwide level, GWI’s regular research finds that email remains one of the most popular connected services, with 75 percent of online adults saying that they use email at least once per month.
For context, that means the world’s internet users are more likely to check their emails than they are to go online to shop, to listen to music, or to read the news.
Moreover, the past two years have seen a steady increase in the share of internet users who say they use email each month.
It’s important to acknowledge the fact that the addition of audiences aged 65 and above will have accelerated these increases after Q1 2024, but email use was already on the ascent before that change in GWI’s demographic coverage.
Beware of stereotypes
And crucially, while GWI’s data suggests that retirees may indeed be more likely to use email than teenagers, email use is actually relatively consistent across all age groups between 16 and 64.
However, you may be surprised to learn that internet users aged 16 to 24 are actually the demographic that is most likely to use email amongst all working-age adults.
In other words, yes: young people still use email.
And moreover, email use is actually increasing amongst these younger age groups too.
So, don’t let click-bait fool you; always remember to check reliable data, and explore what your audiences are really doing online.
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This article is a sub-section of our Digital 2025 Global Overview Report.
Click here to access the complete report, and to read our comprehensive analysis.
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