As mobile devices continue to proliferate, users are incorporating them more and more into their daily routine, with email opening cited as the most common activity.

According to data collected by Return Path, one of the leading companies in email solutions, the most recent holiday season saw a surge in email openings on mobile devices, with more than half taking place on tablets or smart phones. Web mail and desktop computers, by comparison, were only used a quarter of the time to access email.

Curiously, while December 25 had one of the lowest email open rates, Return Path found that the share of emails opened on mobile devices surged to over 60%.

Of the two primary mobile devices, smartphones lead the way when it comes to checking email, with close to 75% of respondents indicating that they checked personal or work-related email on their phone. Half of the respondents cited tablets as the primary device for this activity.

This pattern bodes well for those businesses that employ email distribution as part of their mobile marketing strategy: Yesmail’s analysis of third quarter data in 2013 shows that revenues per click on mobile marketing email was $7.14, more than double that of desktop email.

Reference:

eMarketer. “Mobile Email Opens Trump Those on Desktop,” http://www.emarketer.com/Article/Mobile-Email-Opens-Trump-Those-on-Desktop/1010526. January 14, 2014.