Introduction
Contents
- Introduction
- Editor’s Choice
- General Spam Statistics
- Monthly Spam Statistics Of 2024
- By Common Channels
- Spam-Emitting IP Addresses By Country
- Spam Email Statistics By Country
- By Common Topics
- CO2 Emission Produced by Spam Emails, 2024
- Spam Call Statistics
- By Country
- Spam Calls Per Person Per Month by Country
- Spam Text Statistics
- Phishing Spams by Industry
- Per Day Spam Attacks Statistics
- Impact Of Spam On Individuals And Businesses
- Conclusion
Spam Statistics: Spam has become a huge problem in today’s digital world. It includes unwanted emails, text messages, and calls that disrupt people’s lives and businesses. Every day, billions of spam messages are sent worldwide, making up nearly half of all emails. These messages often carry scams, viruses, or misleading offers, putting individuals and companies at risk.
Spam is not just annoying—it costs businesses billions of dollars every year and even harms the environment due to the energy used in processing it. With the rise of AI, spam is becoming harder to detect and block. This article looks at the latest spam statistics, its impact, and the ongoing efforts to reduce its negative effects on society, businesses, and the planet.
Editor’s Choice
- Spam Statistics show that around 160 billion spam emails are sent daily, making up 46% of total emails globally.
- Meanwhile, 96.8% of people have gotten spam through emails, texts, or phone calls.
- The United States sends the most spam emails daily, with 8 billion messages.
- In 2024, the most common topics in spam emails are prizes and giveaways (36.7%), job offers (36.3%), and fake banking messages (34.6%).
- Email spam causes businesses to lose USD 20.5 billion yearly due to reduced productivity and technical costs.
- Spam Statistics further states that the top ten spam-producing countries emit 2,184 metric tones of CO2 daily from emails.
- Moreover, older men (65+) get 35.5 spam calls monthly, while younger men (18 to 34) get 14.2.
- Many spam messages are now made with AI, making them smarter and harder to spot.
- In 2022, 83% of organizations faced successful email phishing attacks, showing spam remains dangerous.
You May Also Like To Read
General Spam Statistics
- More than two-thirds (68.8%) of people who got spam or phishing messages said it affected their mental health.
- Financial companies are the main target of business phishing attacks, with 27.7% of scam messages sent to businesses in this sector.
- In early 2023, over 1.1 billion spam texts in the U.S. were about deliveries.
- In one day, that equals driving 5.3 million miles, or 1.9 billion yearly.
- Meanwhile, spam emails produce as much CO2 in a day as driving 5.3 million miles in a gas-powered car, adding up to 1.9 billion miles over a year.
- More than 77% of people tricked by AI phone scams ended up losing money.
- As mentioned in Spam Statistics, the anti-spam software market is predicted to grow to USD 22 billion globally by the end of 2030.
- The most common spam emails are about prizes and giveaways, followed by job offers and banking scams.
- Researchers at UC San Diego discovered that online spammers earn about USD 7,000 a day, adding up to roughly USD 2.5 million annually.
Monthly Spam Statistics Of 2024
(Source: cleantalk.org)
Months | Anti-Spam | SpamFireWall | SecurityFireWall |
January | 84 384 575 | 400 948 559 |
50 295 590 |
February |
66 232 734 | 427 001 728 | 139 059 261 |
March | 59 873 191 | 591 510 741 |
60 208 530 |
April |
57 448 340 | 777 888 160 | 70 272 880 |
May | 65 018 880 | 598 694 198 |
54 192 775 |
June |
62 657 516 | 571 340 292 | 55 944 924 |
July | 68 980 984 | 646 200 673 |
60 625 534 |
August |
62 013 154 | 568 375 617 | 57 764 008 |
September | 70 683 914 | 544 339 981 |
59 719 939 |
October |
71 954 542 | 503 235 318 | 69 372 339 |
November | 75 709 550 | 400 798 796 |
66 933 512 |
By Common Channels
- In 2024, around 97% of people have received spam messages involving scams through emails, texts, calls, or other forms of communication.
(Reference: emailtooltester.com)
- Spam Statistics show that Nearly half of people (49%) say they get spam most often through emails.
- Moreover, phone calls account for 26.5% of spam, followed by text messages at 14.7%, while messaging apps like WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger account for the lowest at 9.8%.
Spam-Emitting IP Addresses By Country
- Spam Statistics in 2024 show that China currently has the highest number of spam-producing IP addresses, with 771,021.
- The U.S. comes next with 677,067 cases, followed by Brazil with 253,248 cases.
- However, other countries with the highest number of current live spam issues are the United Kingdom (139,085), India (88,042), the Netherlands (83,587), Vietnam (79,848), Italy (79,326), Germany (56,728), and Morocco (52,663).
Spam Email Statistics By Country
(Reference: statista.com)
- According to a report published by Statista on August 13, 2024, the United States sent the most spam emails in a single day worldwide, about 8 billion emails.
- China comes next with 7.6 billion, while Germany and Russia each send around 7.3 billion spam emails every day.
- During the same duration, the daily number of spam emails sent to other countries is stated as Singapore (7.2 billion), Japan (7.2 billion), France (7.2 billion), the Netherlands (7.1 billion), Ukraine (7 billion), and Canada (6.9 billion).
By Common Topics
- In 2024, the most common topic in spam emails is prizes and giveaways, with 36.7% of people saying they often receive messages about this.
- Meanwhile, emails about job offers were the second most common type, at 36.3%, followed by banking scams at 34.6%.
The table below shows the other common topics in which people receive spam emails:
Topics | Spam Share |
Requests to change password or update account |
28.7% |
Software Download |
23.2% |
Online gambling |
21.1% |
Adult content |
19% |
Cryptocurrency |
17.3% |
Requests for money in exchange for benefit |
17% |
Celebrity impersonation |
12% |
Pharmaceutical |
11.3% |
Romance |
10% |
Others |
8.9% |
CO2 Emission Produced by Spam Emails, 2024
(Reference: emailtooltester.com)
- Spam Statistics in 2024 further states that the top ten spam-producing countries emit 2,184 metric tonnes of CO2 daily from emails, which adds up to 797,160 metric tonnes of CO2 over a year.
- Spam emails sent daily from the U.S. produce 240 metric tonnes of CO2 emissions, followed by China (228 metric tonnes).
- Moreover, other countries with CO2 emissions produced (in metric tonnes) by spam emails are Germany (219), Russia (219), Singapore (216), Japan (216), France (216), the Netherlands (213), Ukraine (210), and Canada (207).
Spam Call Statistics
(Source: emailtooltester.com)
- In 2024, TrueCaller’s latest data reveals that 56.2 million people lost USD 25.4 billion to scam calls in just one year, with each victim losing an average of USD 452.
At the same time, victims of spam call shares based on age and gender are stated in the table below:
Age (years) | Male | Female |
18 to 34 | 14.2% |
16.9% |
35 to 44 |
20.5% | 21.8% |
45 to 54 | 19.6% |
20% |
55 to 64 |
28.9% | 22.2% |
65+ | 35.5% |
35.4% |
- Spam Statistics also state that Hispanic and Black Americans are twice as likely as White Americans to lose money through phone scams.
- In 2024, nearly half of Black Americans (47%) and over a third of Hispanic Americans (36%) have lost money to phone scams, compared to just 25% of White Americans.
By Country
- In Chile, 56.9% of phone calls are unwanted, and 8.9% (15.6 million) are fraudulent.
- Meanwhile, in Indonesia, 56.4% of all phone calls were spam, and 1.4% of them were fraudulent.
Country | Spam Calls Rate |
Argentina | 56% |
Hong Kong | 54% |
Brazil | 46.4% |
Spain | 44.9% |
Mexico | 43% |
France | 42.5% |
Italy | 40% |
Philippines | 29.4% |
Spam Calls Per Person Per Month by Country
- Spam Statistics in 2024 show that, on average, people in Brazil now receive the most nuisance or fraud calls, about 25 each month.
- Hong Kong ranks second with an average of 20 spam calls per person each month, while Chile follows with 18.
- Furthermore, other country’s monthly spam calls per person are followed by Mexico (16), U.S.(12), Spain (10), Italy (10), India (10), France (9), Puerto Rico (8), Indonesia (7), Argentina (7), Philippines (7), Poland (6) and Peru (6).
Spam Text Statistics
- In the first six months of 2023, people in the U.S. got around 78 billion spam texts, which is about 13 billion every month.
- During the same period, over 1.1 billion spam texts about delivery services were sent in the U.S., making it the most common type of scam.
- Meanwhile, scammers stole about USD 13 billion through SMS tricks
- Most people, about 83%, said they get spam texts, and 24% of them deal with these messages every day.
- Based on Spam Statistics of 2024, young adults aged 18 to 24 were the top targets for scammers, with 55% being contacted and nearly 60% facing financial losses themselves or knowing someone who did.
Phishing Spams by Industry
- As of 2024, banks and financial institutions are most targeted, receiving 27.7% of all phishing emails or messages.
- SaaS, webmail companies (17.7%), and social media platforms (10.4%) are major sources of spam.
Meanwhile, the share of phishing messages shared by other industries in 2024 is elaborated on in the table below:
Industry | Phishing Message Share |
Logistics/Shipping | 9% |
Payment | 6% |
E-commerce/Retail | 5.6% |
Telecom | 3.1% |
Cryptocurrency | 2.3% |
Other | 18.2% |
You May Also Like To Read
Per Day Spam Attacks Statistics
(Reference: cleantalk.com)
- As mentioned in Spam Statistics in 2024, annual statistics of spam attack distribution per day for phpBB 3 resulted in 19, followed by Joomla 1.5 (118) and WordPress (14).
- Furthermore, other spam attack distributions are represented as DataLife Engine (3), IP. Board (75), vBulletin (71), 1C Bitrix (40), Drupal (44), Simple Machines Forum (36), MediaWiki (47), XenForo (18), Magento (86), phpBB 3.1, 3.2 (16), IPS Community Suite 4 (14), Typo3 (21), Drupal 8 (10), Joomla 2.X, 3.X (36), vBulletin 5 (61), Magento 2.x (215), MyBB 1.x (35), OpenCart (12), XenForo 2 (5), ModX Revolution (36), Joomla 3.X, 4.X (40), Universal Security Plugin (54), Drupal 9,10 (42), PrestaShop (16), Craft CMS (1) and OpenCart 4-1.0 (2).
Impact Of Spam On Individuals And Businesses
- According to Nucleus Research, spam causes businesses to lose about USD 1,934 per employee yearly.
- As of 2024, older adults over 65 lose the most money to scams and become victims more often than others.
- Three out of ten email users worry their filters might accidentally block real, important messages.
- In 2023, Australians faced over 74,000 phishing scams, losing more than USD 24.6 million, Scamwatch reported.
- By 2025, Gartner predicts that 40% of boards will create committees focused on cybersecurity management.
- An anti-spam device recorded a 17.56% increase in spam detection within just one month.
- Smartphones are the most popular method for multi-factor authentication, used by 73% of people worldwide.
- Around 68% of organizations give their employees cybersecurity training at least once every year.
- The use of recommended email security increased from 8% to 61.3%, and encryption rose similarly.
- Mimecast’s cloud spam filter blocks 99% of spam with nearly no mistakes at 0.0001%.
Conclusion
Spam is a global problem that affects millions of people every day through unwanted emails, texts, and calls. It wastes time, causes financial losses, and even harms the environment. Businesses lose billions annually due to spam, and many people fall victim to scams like phishing attacks.
With the rise of AI, spam is becoming harder to detect. To fight spam, we need better technology, strong cybersecurity measures, and public awareness to reduce its harmful effects on society and the planet.