More and more people read their email in webbased email clients. It’s not even a trend anymore. There will come a day when the traditional email clients only exists in the past. That’s why an increasing emphasis is put on the Web browser to read emails.
Software in ‘the cloud’ is the new big thing. Internet Explorer is losing ground. Firefox’s growth is starting to plateau. And each percent market share Chrome consumes, is accompanied by some fireworks. Is Chrome therefore the browser that is used by everyone for reading email?
Internet Explorer rules
Litmus, specialized in testing emails read in several email clients, did the research. In September 2012 they came to the conclusion that Internet Explorer is still the king of the browsers, when it comes to reading email. With 51% they still hold the majority. Although they need to pay attention. In March 2011, they still had a market share of 61%. So it shrinks rapidly.
Chrome is booming
Other players threaten their position. Chrome increased its presence in the email reading market in that period from 4 to 14%. What’s more, they easily sailed past Apple’s Safari and came closer to Firefox. The latter is still the second in line. If you want to predict a trend, you may expect Internet Explorer to drop significantly below the 50% percent, and the first place will be held by Firefox when it comes to reading email. Or will it be Chrome?
Browser depends on the email address
There is another nice trend. Depending on the email address, the reader has an absolute preference for a browser when reading his digital mail. A Gmail user puts Chrome first every time. A Hotmail Address still swears by Internet Explorer. But strangely Safari takes second place. We wonder if the new Outlook.com will toss that around.
Test everything
Unless your email marketing list only contains e-mail addresses with a gmail extension, it is still wise to test your e-mails as often as possible. It’s not enough to read the web version of your email. You should also read it in every possible browser. It takes some time, but in terms of conversion a legible email is preferable to a poorly readable. And as any experienced surfer knows, not every browser supports any set of css, html and other formatting elements. Not that we like stating the obvious.
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