What is the first thing you check when you wake up in the morning?

If you are among the 58% of email users worldwide, your answer would be your inbox.

Electronic mail is here–it is fast, efficient, and growing. 

Gone were days when we had to rely solely upon Yahoo Mail and Hotmail for our electronic mailing needs.

Let us dive right into some of the most asked questions about Gmail, including how many people in the world have a Gmail account?

How Many People Use Gmail in 2023?

Gmail has 1.8 billion users worldwide— out of 4.66 billion email account owners.

This is twice the number of its 900 million users just seven years ago.

The influx in customer base came when it became part of Gsuite–Google’s workspace service offering which combines document sharing, cloud collaboration, and email.

Gsuite has more than two (2) billion total users today

How Many People Have Downloaded Gmail?

Gmail was the fourth application ever to hit 10 billion installations. 

Specifically, this was for Android, with the downloads coming from the Google Play Store.

How Many Emails are Sent and Received?

306.40 billion emails are sent and received in 2020. This number grew to 319.60 billion in 2021.

Each average worker receives 121 emails per day and 24% of which are opened within an hour. 

Every Gmail account contains 5,700 messages on average, including social and promotional messages.

Only 10% of the total number are mails that make sense while 70% are purely promotional.

What is Gmail?

Gmail is Google’s free email service enabling users to send, receive, search, and organize messages sent electronically.

It is one of the most-preferred communication tools by workspaces worldwide, accessible through a web browser and a mobile app.

Gmail Started as a Joke

Google started building its email service in 1999 but it did not become a full-fledged service until 2004.

At that time, Yahoo Mail has already 12 million active users and Hotmail had 30 million while Gmail had none.

Four years after forming the idea, Gmail has finally come to the public’s attention during April Fool’s Day of 2004. Every user who signed up on the launch got 1GB of free storage.

Gmail Hit One Billion Users in 2016

It was not exactly an easy journey for Gmail.

It was only in the early months of 2012 that it gained steady market patronage and achieved 300 million registrations.

The user count hit one billion in 2016, twelve years after its founding. Two years after this milestone, it added 500 million new accounts which sent 2018’s total user base to 1.5 billion.

Mobile Device Accessing

Gmail app’s availability on handheld devices contributed to the uptrend. About 75% of all Gmail users access their emails through mobile phones.

Gmail Users by Age

The majority of Gmail users are aged 18-29 years old. This age group dominates a good 60% of the total. 

On the other hand, Yahoo appears to be more appealing to older age groups.

35% of email users aged 65+ reportedly use Yahoo Mail as a domain compared to Gmail’s share of 24%.

Do We Have Other Options?

Gmail is one of the dominant players in the email client market.

But it is not the only available service provider.

Apple holds 59.78% of the total email client market, while Gmail has 27.43%.

Other important players include Outlook and Yahoo Mail which have 4.32% and 3.44%, respectively.

How Hackable is Gmail

Almost all internet service providers are hackable.

But some take a bit more effort to break than others and applications holding sensitive user information take security seriously.

An example is PayPal. The financial services firm practices Ethical Hacking Strategy and pays hackers to see loopholes in its system.

In 2014, the success rate in hacking the Gmail app is a whopping 92%.

Nevertheless, the app ensures that hackers will not be able to collect any valuable information from users as it employs TSL and SSL encryptions.

Spam Record

Spam messages are sent 10 million times per second or 14 billion times per day across Gmail accounts alone.

Good thing Google has automatic machine learning to block the majority of these useless messages.

The technology can detect and separate these types of messages from worthy ones based on subject lines.

In percentage, only 0.1% of spam messages make it to users’ inboxes.

Consequently, about 0.05% or 1 in every 2,000 decent messages are filtered to spam.

While this is a very small percentage, make it a habit to check your spam section frequently to avoid passing on some important messages. 

One Gmail Account is Not Enough

Every Gmail user has an average of 1.7 accounts.

Users usually create separate accounts for work, subscriptions, family and friends, and school. 

Why So Many People Have Gmail

An average salaryman spends half of their time at work sending and answering back on emails.

But why are people so inclined to use this app?

Gmail is Free

Who doesn’t like free stuff?

Especially ones that add meaning to life.

More than half of the population uses Gmail to communicate without having to pay anything. It is fast, efficient, and free!

It is Secure

Gmail employs high-quality encryption to ensure that all data entered on the platform is secured at all times.

Encryption involves altering information to make it appear like a random date so hackers could not make sense of the information.

Huge Storage Space

Worry not about a “storage space almost full” warning.

A Google account has 15 GB of free storage shared by Gmail, Gdrive, and Google Photos.

Gmail Availability

Now, can we imagine just a day in our life without email?

Gmail supports 105 million languages and operates 24/7 in almost all countries worldwide. 

Service outages are not very common in this app, but they happen.

The longest one took place in February 2009 when the service shut off for 2.5 hours but only 100 million users were affected.

This goes to show that Gmail remains a reliable email servicing platform at all times.

Gmail for Marketing

Well, the reason why marketers love this platform is its accessibility to target audiences. Promotional emails get read 19.2% on Gmail.

Meanwhile, Gmail has been involved in using users’ search information to create targeted ads in the past.

Today, Google vows to never use user Gmail content to create personalized ads for users.

Gmail Users in the World: Takeaway

1.8 billion out of the 8 billion human population.

That is how many people have Gmail in 2023. It is one of the most preferred emailing platforms globally since it launched in 2004.

Gmail is an efficient, time-saving, and reliable medium of communication.

We expect to see more user growth as digital platforms become more accessible in developing countries as long as it keeps services free and secured.

Sources