Mobile Email: Are We Getting The Message Yet

Two new pieces of research into mobile email reveal some interesting stats about the service, even if widespread use is still yet to come. AOL, in its annual “Email Addiction” survey, claims:

— that email use on portable devices has doubled since 2004, with the average user checking email around five times a day.
— 59 percent of people with portable email devices are using them to check email every time a new message arrives
— 43 percent of users keep their devices near them when they sleep to check for incoming messages.

Separately, Gartner predicts that there will be 350 million business and consumer users with access to wireless email by 2010, equating to one-fifth of all email accounts. The analyst firm believes that increasing device interoperability, and messaging convergence (between, say, a PC and a mobile, and between IM and email) will mean that email will be much more common than other forms of mobile messaging. But as an article in VNUnet points out, around 114 million text messages are currently sent every day, so it may be quite some time until mobile email completely overtakes SMS.

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