• An average of 42 mails per day: business mail communication at an all-time high
• Every twelfth person receives 100 or more business mails every day

The new offer from the supplier, the info to colleagues, the link for the next online conference or the weekly newsletter – e-mails had already been declared dead, but it is impossible to imagine offices without them. Even after the end of the corona-related restrictions, the flood of e-mails has increased again. On average, 42 e-mails are received daily in every professional mailbox in Germany. Two years ago it was 26 mails, in 2018 only 21 mails and in 2014 only 18 mails. These are the results of a representative survey commissioned by the digital association Bitkom among almost 500 (497) working internet users in Germany.

“Corona has not only accelerated digitalisation, Corona has also helped email to a second spring. The many collaboration tools do not replace email, they complement it – yet,” says Bitkom CEO Dr Bernhard Rohleder. “Email is alive. Especially for external communication and sending documents, email remains the standard.”

Overall, only 5 percent of professionals receive fewer than 10 emails per day. For 28 percent it is between 10 and 24 mails, for a quarter (24 percent) between 25 and 49 mails per day. Between 50 and 74 messages can be found daily in the professional mailbox by 13 percent, between 75 and 99 mails by 5 percent. Every twelfth person (8 per cent) even receives 100 or more business mails a day. In contrast, 14 percent of professionals do not communicate by e-mail in a professional context.

Note on methodology: The data is based on a survey conducted by Bitkom Research on behalf of the digital association Bitkom. It surveyed 1,007 people in Germany aged 16 and over, including 497 working internet users. The survey is representative. The question was: “How many emails do you receive on average per day at your work email address?”