• by Mark Walsh  @markfwal, December 6, 2011

Email continues to gain ground on mobile devices -- especially on the iPad, according to a new report. Research from email certification and reputation firm Return Path shows that mobile email opens increased 34% from April to September 2011 compared with the prior six months.

Mobile views include those in a native email client, on a mobile Web browser or within an email app. During the same period, email views on the iPad jumped 73%. Views increased 12% from March to April, when the iPad 2 was introduced, and continued to rise steadily thereafter. Return Path expects that growth to continue as the Apple tablet proliferates and because of the device’s slick email interface. 

The rapid growth on the mobile side contrasts with declining use of Webmail and desktop email programs, where email opens fell 11% and 9%, respectively, from April to September. Mobile overall, however, still represents the smallest proportion of email opens, at 23%, compared to 44% on webmail and 33% for desktop email. 

The report also found that mobile email use spiked on the weekend, consistent with overall mobile usage trends, while desktop email activity is higher during the week. Monday is equally strong for both Webmail and desktop, but the worst day of the week for mobile email. 

Adoption of mobile email across industry categories was fairly even, with the average proportion of mobile views at 20%. The entertainment and social networking industry verticals had the highest rate of mobile email opens, at 27% each.

Outlook remained the No. 1 installed software brand on the desktop, with 63% of email opens, unchanged over the last six months. Apple Mail was a distant second, at 31%. The next closest were Thunderbird and AOL Desktop, each with about 3% of email views.

“Email is more relevant today than ever before as consumption continues to grow on more platforms,” stated Matt Blumberg, CEO of Return Path. While email use may be growing on mobile devices, this does not necessarily make it a top priority for marketers as a mobile advertising vehicle.

A survey released Tuesday by AT&T showed that advertising and marketing executives ranked smartphone apps and mobile barcodes as the mobile marketing programs they are most interested in launching in 2012. Other top categories included banner ads, the mobile Web, SMS messages and digital signage. (AT&T, of course, offers its own mobile barcode services.)

The results of the AT&T study were based on a survey conducted in September with 501 marketing or advertising professionals working at a U.S.-based company with more than 1,000 employees.