Spam Statistics

  • Global Email Spam Metrics

    • Spam accounted for 47.27% of global email traffic in 2024—up by 1.27 percentage points from the previous year. Spam peaked in June (49.52%) and July (49.27%) and was lowest in October–November (~45.3%). (DeBounce, Securelist)
    • In December 2024, the spam share rose to over 46.8% of all email traffic. (Mailmodo)

    Volume of Spam Emails

    • Daily spam volume reached ~160 billion emails per day in 2023, and projections suggest that in 2024, nearly 362 billion emails were sent daily, with over 40% likely being spam—equating to 145 billion spam emails per day. (EmailTooltester.com)

    Phishing & Malicious Content

    • About 1 in 5 emails globally (20%) in 2024 contained phishing or spam content. (Keepnet Labs)
    • Of all email traffic in 2024, 1.2% were phishing emails—around 3.4 billion phishing emails sent daily. (Keepnet Labs)
    • Between 0.7% and 4.7% of phishing emails were found to be AI-generated. (Hoxhunt)

    Industry Targeting & Trends

    • The IT/software sector was the most targeted industry in 2024, accounting for 26% of phishing attacks, followed by education (8.62%) and financial services (6.13%). (easydmarc.com)
    • Globally, the United States received the highest share of phishing attacks at 53.24%, followed by other digitally advanced economies. (easydmarc.com)

    Summary Table

    Metric Statistic (2024)
    Proportion of email traffic that is spam 47.27% global average
    Spam email volume per day ~145 billion emails/day out of ~362 billion total
    Phishing/spam content prevalence 20% of all emails globally
    Phishing-specific volume 1.2% of total traffic (~3.4 billion emails/day)
    AI-generated phishing emails 0.7%–4.7%
    Most targeted industries IT (26%), education (8.6%), finance (6.1%)
    Country receiving most phishing attacks United States (53.24%)