Yahoo mail is kicking serious butt … in Iran (infographic) — January 27, 2013

While Yahoo mail may not be the most popular email service in the world, it is widely preferred to all other services in Iran, according to a new study by Conovi.

Iran is an especially interesting place to look in the world at digital trends, considering the country actively blocks its citizens from sites it doesn’t agree with. A previous trend that was surprising was that 58 percent of Iranians use Facebook despite blocks by the government.

The study was conducted Chimigi, an online reasearch panel owned by Conovi, and surveyed 800 respondents. One of the most interesting trends was that 63 percent of respondents preferred Yahoo mail to all other email services, including Gmail and Hotmail. Gmail is preferred by 32 percent while Hotmail has only a 2 percent preference.

“Iran remains one of Yahoo’s leading markets,” Conovi Managing Partner Amir-‐Esmaeil Bozorgzadeh said in a statement. “Although the general idea is that the more tech-‐savvy users prefer Gmail, and the trend we’re seeing is certainly moving in Google’s direction.”

A few other interesting things of note in the study included:

The most popular web security apps among respondents was ESET’s NOD32 (48%), Kapersky (18%), and Microsoft Security Essentials (9%)
69% of respondents spend between 30 minutes and 2 hours on email each day
The top used Google service among respondents was Google Translate at 53%

Check out the infographic below for surprising stats on digital Iran: