Dear ardmore,
Thanks for your question. First, let me request that if any of the
following is unclear or if you require any further research – please
don’t hesitate to ask me for a clarification.
You requested a list of all email programs (outlook, outlook express,
yahoo mail, aol mail etc.) by market penetration or whatever data that
can support a decision making process to include or exclude email
programs from your support strategy.
Let’s begin with some generic stats about HTML mail – these are from
Anderson’s article, referenced below –
+ 87% of Internet users CAN read HTML mail using their current
preferred client
+ Of the 13% who could not handle HTML mail entirely – most could at
least receive some options such as clickable links and enhanced text
+ The most popular email client according to the January 2001 survey
conducted by Doctor Ebiz was MS Outlook; MS Outlook 2000 was the most
popular of the MS Outlook versions.
+ A complete table of client popularity is available here –
http://www.wilsonweb.com/wmt6/images/email-clients.gif
(pretty pie chart...)
+ Eudora and earlier version of AOL were disappointing.
+Mac users continue to get “short changed…”
More recent data is available through a mid-2002 survey conducted by
ClickZ (see Grossman reference below). According to that survey, the
most prevalent email clients are –
+AOL (versions 5.0 through 7.0)
+ Microsoft Outlook
+ Microsoft Outlook Express
+ Eudora
+ Netscape
+ Hotmail
+ Yahoo!Mail
+ Lotus Notes
See the article at –
http://www.clickz.com/emailstrategies/tech/print.php/1428551
for exact percentage penetration and usage – this should be exactly
the data you are looking for.
According to Grossman’s survey, 89.18% of email users are now capable
of receiving HTML mail through the client of their choice.
An article on NUA reveals that as of April 2000 there were 569 million
email accounts, with over a billion accounts anticipated by April
2002. More than half of these can be traced back to US-based users.
See –
http://www.nua.com/surveys/index.cgi?f=VS&art_id=905355701&rel=true
I hope this response adequately addresses your request. See also
additional info sources under "additional references" below - not
entirely related to your exact question, but may provide some
additional information of interest for your project. Please let me
know if you are in need of additional information concerning this
query.
Thanks,
ragingacademic-ga
References:
Real-World Email Client Usage: The Hard Data
7-19-2002
E. Grossman
http://www.clickz.com/emailstrategies/tech/print.php/1428551
How Well Can Your Audience Read HTML?
3-29-2001
Heidi Anderson
http://www.clickz.com/em_mkt/case_studies/article.php/839541
Additional Links:
Ratings of email clients
http://cws.internet.com/mail.html
List of email clients with descriptions and downloads
http://www.alwaysfreeware.co.uk/mailclients.html
Information on Web-based email from Internet.com
http://www.internetemaillist.com/
Email Clients and HTML: Readers Weigh In
http://www.clickz.com/em_mkt/case_studies/article.php/839941
Search Strategy:
“html clients”
"html mail clients" market penetration
"html mail clients" "market penetration"
"html mail clients" hotmail
"html mail clients"
"html mail clients" usage hotmail statistics client
"html mail" usage hotmail statistics |
Request for Answer Clarification by
ardmore-ga
on
28 Feb 2003 14:26 PST
Hi there ragingacademic - Another researcher gave me this info already
from survey in Click2. As I said before this info is not very helpful
as the writer himself at the publication admits its very skewed to a
tech profile. Also the same goes with the Wilson website - this is a
very small sampling of readers of his newsletter. Plus it's outdated
as he's talking about pre-aol 5.0.
This is not new info for me. I'm sorry. I need a definitive list
of all email clients and their relative market share from big to
smallest. The developers that I am working with need to test the
service / product against the clients that we (the marketers)
determine. So we'll optimize for the greatest number. Perhaps if I
could get a breakdown of the 569 email accounts the NUA highligts? I
mean there's many more email clients than what is listed in the Click
research, right? Maybe this info is not in public domain?
Can you provide me with what I'm looking for? otherwise... next steps?
Thanks very much...
|
Clarification of Answer by
ragingacademic-ga
on
28 Feb 2003 19:52 PST
Dear ardmore -
Thanks for your clarification request.
As a first step, could you please point me to the question where a
researcher had already given you the Click2 results?
thanks,
ragingacademic
|
Request for Answer Clarification by
ardmore-ga
on
28 Feb 2003 20:06 PST
Hello -
The editors removed this. check w/ them. I'm not a so familiar with
how all this works - but when the last researcher agreed that his /
her efforts were indeed not very useful - they just erased the
response but kept the question there so someone else could answer it.
I think maybe it would have been useful to you to know that we have
already been down the path you presented and what I need is something
more specific, something more definitive and market penetration data
from a more widely accepted source.
Thanks....
|
Clarification of Answer by
ragingacademic-ga
on
28 Feb 2003 20:32 PST
Dear ardmore -
Thanks for your clarification.
I'll check with the editors on the removal.
You had requested -
"The developers need definitive list of email clients
that we (the marketers) choose to support. I want to get a very
difinitive list of all email programs (outlook, outlook express, yahoo
mail, aol mail etc.) by market penetration or whatever data that can
support the decision making process to include or exclude email
programs. We will optimize for the greatest number."
The class of programs you requested - Outlook, Outlook Express etc. -
indicated that you are looking for major email clients, and not 2-bit
players, of which there probably are several hundred. If your intent
is to make support decisions, you do not want to look at anyone
outside of the majors anyway.
Both ClickZ and NUA are highly reliable sources often quoted in
marketing circles, and they have both been around for 5-6 years. The
surveys were conducted by professionals, and the results of the two
surveys are not significantly different. Being that they were
conducted independently of each other, this would seem to indicate
that they fairly represent reality. Of course, you won't be sure
unless you carry out your own primary research.
Let me add that I am rarely this happy with the results of my
research, since my feeling was that I compiled EXACTLY the kind of
data you had requested.
Next steps -
+ If you want results of research from more reliable sources, I'll be
happy to identify some reports from the likes of Gartner and IDC which
you could purchase. These reports typically run in the $1500 to $5000
range. Of course, such data is not in the public domain.
+ I'm sure you're not seriously suggesting that I gather information
on the 500+ clients that are out there - but they should not be of
interest to you if you are trying to "optimize," right? With out any
surveys, we know that the top clients are Microsoft, Lotus, Eudora,
Hotmail, Yahoo etc...
If there is any other relevant research you would like me to undertake
- that will demand a reasonable amount of time to complete - I'd be
happy to do so within the context of this question.
Thanks!
ragingacademic
|
