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E-mail use is expected to grow substantially over the next five years and the number of e-mailboxes will increase to 1.2 billion by 2005, according to IDC.
According to the Massachusetts-based research company, the compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of e-mailboxes will hit 138 percent, demonstrating a growth in e-mailboxes globally from 505 million in 2000 to 1.2 billion in 2005.
According to the company's analysis published in its "Third annual Email Usage Forecast and Analysis, 2001-2005," this growth is based on three factors, Web services, wireless access, and workers without e-mail.
The report includes a 10-year market view (1995-2005) of e-mail mailboxes, users, volumes, and primary access methods for North America, Western Europe and the Asia/Pacific regions.
The company says that although a shakeout has taken place among free e-mail providers, it believes the existing leaders in the market will see tremendous growth in mailboxes tied to Web sites such as Microsoft's Hotmail.
In fact the growth of wireless e-mail services made a major leap earlier this year when in late August Microsoft announced that it would give 20 million European Hotmail users wireless access to their e-mail.
The plan, by one of the world's largest free e-mail services, will see users access Hotmail accounts and send e-mails via SMS and is expected to give mobile users greater access to the MSN portal.
In Ireland the free e-mail service from Ireland.com will shortly become a paid service. The company announced earlier this month that it would soon begin selling a premium subscription-based service to new and existing users.
"Wireless access through e-mail devices and network services will offer new ways for e-mail users to remain connected longer while on the move," said Mark Levitt, research director for IDC's collaborative computing program. He added, "Workers such as deskless and mobile workers whose access to e-mail has not come easy will benefit from customised e-mail software, devices, and hosted services."
Indeed, IDC has provided additional figures to reinforce its claims. The number of person-to-person e-mails sent on an average day is expected to exceed 36 billion worldwide in 2005, IDC predicts. The company also said, the growing effect of the Web on e-mail is evident in widening usage of Web browsers as the primary method for accessing e-mail, expected to surpass 50 percent for all e-mail mailboxes worldwide in 2003.
"E-mail usage is growing despite challenges from market substitutes like instant messaging and virtual workspaces that require a change in the way people work and often fall short of matching e-mail's ease of use and global reach," said Robert Mahowald, senior analyst for IDC's collaborative computing program. He also said e-mail will be driven by better integration between e-mail and other business applications thereby making the technology even more accessible than it already is.
IDC can be found http://www.idc.com.
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