Most email marketers have encountered this graph at some point in their career:
It’s a report from Litmus, showing the top 10 email clients by market share. This report is widely considered a critical resource, cited in thousands of articles, shared on social media, and discussed at work. It’s become THE benchmark for email client market share.
However, from my perspective, this report is one of the most misunderstood resources in email marketing – and today, I’ll explain why.
The problem
The report is based on email opens tracked by Litmus’s pixel from the emails of its customers. With over 1 billion opens tracked monthly, it’s undeniably a large dataset. However, the way the data is presented can be misleading.
The first problem is that Litmus’s customer base primarily consists of US-based businesses that send emails to mostly US-based recipients. This creates a geographic bias that significantly skews the data — something that’s not explicitly noted.
The second problem is Apple’s overwhelming share in the report. Over two-thirds of Apple’s reported opens come from Apple Mail Privacy Protection, which essentially tracks “fake” opens that inflate Apple’s numbers. While this is clearly explained in Litmus’ report, it often gets overlooked in articles citing the report, and most people I encounter don’t seem to be aware of this fact.
The reality
The actual global email client landscape is quite different.
Apple is the dominant email client in just a handful of countries, such as the US, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. Even in these countries, Apple’s market share is closer to 25-35%, far from the 50%+ suggested by many reports. All newer benchmarks are polluted with the Apple privacy opens so it’s hard to determine the exact number.
Gmail is the leading email provider in the majority of other countries around the world, including Europe, South America, Africa and a big chunk of population in Asia with India, and south-eastern Asian countries.
Yahoo and Outlook have a much larger presence outside of the US. For example, while Outlook holds only about 4% of the market in the US, it commands 25-30% in countries like Spain, Italy, Sweden, India, etc. Similarly, Yahoo reaches 10-15% market share around the world.
Local email providers are major players in certain regions. In Germany, for example, 30% of users rely on Web.de, with an additional 25% using GMX. Gmail ranks only third with a 20% market share. Here are a few other examples of countries where local providers play a big role:
Country | Email provider | Est. market share |
Germany | Web.de | 30% |
GMX | 25% | |
France | Orange Mail | 20% |
Japan | Yahoo | 32% |
South Korea | Naver Mail | 45% |
Daum Mail | 10% | |
China | QQ Mail | 40% |
163 Mail | 25% | |
Russia | Mail.ru | 45% |
Yandex | 15% | |
Italy | Libero Mail | 10% |
Czechia | Seznam | 20% |
Poland | WP Mail | 20% |
These estimates are based on various data sources and should not be treated as precise figures.
Age matters too
In addition to geography, age also plays a significant role in email provider usage. Although there isn’t extensive data, the general trend is clear: younger users (under 35) favor Gmail and Apple Mail, while older generations tend to use Outlook, Yahoo, and email services from local ISPs.
This is largely because older users started using email when ISPs provided email services as part of internet packages. During that time, Yahoo was the main search engine, smartphones were non-existent, and Windows dominated the computer business steering people towards it’s services like Outlook, Hotmail, MSN.
The conclusion
This isn’t meant to criticize Litmus – it’s a fantastic tool that I use on a daily basis. Instead, my goal is to bring attention to a widespread misconception. Globally, Apple Mail is far from the dominant email client, and far more people use Outlook and Yahoo than the Litmus benchmark suggests.
So, the next time you’re testing emails, don’t make the mistake I did by thinking, “No one uses GMX, so it doesn’t matter that the preview is broken.” Depending on your audience’s location and age, millions of people might be using that very email client – or another one we tend to overlook as the result of the famous benchmark.