From 1 May to 31 October 2008, the provider has seen a 50% jump in the number of new mailboxes being created each month by its many hundreds of thousands of business customers. The company has also noted how the average size of a UK business email account is decreasing in time, perhaps a reflection of how businesses are handling emails more efficiently. Fasthosts responded to the increased demand by stepping-up regular expansion of its technical capacity by 50% during the summer months.
Steve Holford, CMO at Fasthosts internet, said: "Over the past year, email has become even more important for businesses. When adapting to tougher trading conditions, email can often provide an efficient, cost effective alternative or work around for a variety of workflows. In addition to more email accounts being created, we have also seen increased demand for mobile functionality as business users seek to increase productivity on the move.”
Interestingly, while both the number of new email accounts created each month and Fasthosts' overall email load has grown, the average UK business mailbox has decreased in size significantly over the past year.
Accordingly to Fasthosts, in November 2007 the average total business mailbox size was 881MB while one year later the average size stands at
749MB, a reduction of some 18%.