23 Email Spam Statistics to Know in 2022

According to Statista, nearly half of the emails sent worldwide are spam. And a majority of these spam emails come from countries like the US, China, and Russia.

If you want to find out how many spam emails are sent daily from different parts of the world, continue reading to discover the latest email spam statistics.

Table of contents

• Worldwide email spam statistics
• What are the different types of spam emails sent?
• Phishing and spoofing email spam statistics
• Which countries send the most percentage of spam emails?
• Next steps

Worldwide email spam statistics

Let's look at the big picture and find out how many spam emails are sent worldwide. But to know that, you must first know how many emails are sent worldwide.

In 2021, it was estimated that nearly 319.6 billion emails were sent and received daily.

• And in December 2021, 45.37% of the total emails were deemed as spam emails.

• From 2020 to 2021, the global spam volume was the highest in July 2021, when 283 billion out of 336.41 billion emails were spam.

• In September 2021, the number of spam emails worldwide was around 88.88 billion out of 105.67 billion emails.

• One spam email's carbon footprint is nearly 0.03g of CO2e. So in 2021, the number of spam emails sent could have released about 4.5 tonnes of CO2e.

Sources: Radicati, Statista 1, Statista 2, Profile Books.

What are the different types of spam emails sent?

Several spam emails are being sent, like ads, chain letters, phishing, hoaxes, money scams, malware warnings, adult content, etc.

• The most common type of spam is marketing/advertising emails which account for nearly 36% of all spam emails.

• The second most predominant type of spam is emails with adult content which makes up around 31.7% of all spam.

• Emails associated with financial matters are the third most common type of spam, making up about 26.5% of all spam emails.

• 2.5% of all spam emails are scams and fraud. Among which 73% of it are phishing emails.

Source: Spam Laws.

Phishing and spoofing email spam statistics

• Nearly 96% of phishing attacks are conducted using email.

• 77% of organizations faced business email compromise (BEC) attacks in 2021. BEC includes attacks like payroll redirect and supplier invoicing frauds.

• The average cost of BEC exploits was $5.96 million in 2021.

• 83% of organizations faced successful email-based phishing attacks in 2021.

• 39% of individuals have said they received at least one suspicious email attachment.

• 15% of individuals said they received an email impersonating their organization.

Sources: Proofpoint 1, Proofpoint 2, Proofpoint 3,

Which countries send the most percentage of spam emails?

Here is a list of 10 countries that sent the most spam emails as of October 18, 2021.

1. The United States of America is at the top sending around 8.61 billion spam emails.

2. And China is coming at a close second, sending 8.53 billion spam emails.

3. Russia is in third place, with 8.09 billion spam emails.

4. Brazil comes fourth, sending around 8.03 billion spam emails.

5. India comes after that in fifth, sending 7.97 billion spam emails.

6. Germany is sixth with 7.9 billion spam emails.

7. The Czech Republic is close to Germany at seventh, sending 7.83 billion spam emails.

8. In the last 3 places comes Poland, Bulgaria, and the UK, sending 7.77, 7.73, and 7.71 billion emails, respectively.

Source: Statista.

Next steps

After reading about all the terrifying statistics of spam emails, you must have realized that even the harmless marketing emails you send can be labeled as spam.

But why? You surely did nothing wrong. Or did you? Read our guide on email spam reasons to find out why your emails end up in spam.