OX Blog

Increase in email traffic highlights its importance for both businesses and consumers at this critical time

Written by Stephan Martin | Apr 20, 2020

Among the many far-reaching consequences of Covid-19 is its impact on our daily working lives. The restrictions on movement and the shift to working from home has forced employees and families alike to find new and more creative ways of collaborating and keeping in touch. 

While video conferencing and other collaboration tools have all enjoyed a surge in popularity, email remains one of the most trusted and frequently used means of online communication. In 2020 an estimated 300 million emails are sent out per day, helping to keep employees informed and allowing people to stay in touch and work together effectively. 

At Open-Xchange we’ve paid close attention to how the pandemic has affected email traffic for our customers and it’s clear that email is playing an essential role in keeping lines of communication for both consumers and businesses.

Between the final week of January and the first week of April, we saw an increase in the average number of IMAP connections over all IMAP backends on all platforms; this increase notably reached 38% for one customer in the US and 12.5% across EU platforms.

New technologies are springing up all the time to help us collaborate and stay connected. But despite this, as we’ve become more reliant on virtual communication, reliable email access is as vital as ever.   

As such, we remain committed to delivering the best possible service and keeping our customers connected. We will also be working to anticipate and accommodate the growth in demand, so we can ensure our customers and their businesses run smoothly while we work through these uncertain times. 

We’d like to say a huge thank you to all our customers and partners, and our thoughts are with all those adjusting to a ‘new normal’.