Just two months ago we outlined why we were bullish on the Android platform.  Since then the outlook has brightened even further.  Data from our network suggests several key themes over the last two months:

• Rapid growth: Worldwide requests from Android devices increased 97% from October to December. AdMob received over 1 billion ad requests from Android devices in Dec 09.
• Increased manufacturer diversity:  In October, 98% of requests came from HTC devices.  In December, 56% of requests were from HTC devices, 39% from Motorola devices, and 5% from Samsung.
• Increased device diversity: In December, 7 devices generated more than 3% of requests each: the Motorola Droid, HTC Dream, HTC Magic, HTC Hero, Motorola CLIQ, HTC Droid Eris, and the Samsung Moment.  This is up from only 3 devices in October (HTC Dream, HTC Magic, and HTC Hero).  Droid Invasion:  The Motorola Droid is already the leading Android handset in the AdMob network and generated 30% of requests in December.
• US leads Android adoption:  90% of Android traffic was in the US in December, up from 84% in October.  Top countries by requests are the US, UK, Germany, France, and Canada, respectively.

This chart of traffic by handset in our network pretty much sums it all up:

These statistics are based on the ad requests we receive from mobile sites and applications in the AdMob network.  Please visit this post for more info on how to interpret our statistics. We also encourage you to visit our Metrics blog to see more of our network statistics.

Mike F.

In partnership with comScore, we regularly conduct survey research on our network to determine the audience composition of our partner sites and apps.  We use this information to create demographic bundles to deliver unparalleled targeting and performance for the campaigns our advertising partners run on AdMob’s network.

This original research also allows us to look more deeply at our large network and gain insights into the demographic characteristics of users of devices such as the iPhone and iPod touch.  We are excited to be the first to collect and share this comparative data.  When we started the research, we hypothesized that iPod touch users were younger on average than iPhone users and this hypothesis was supported by the results.

iPOD TOUCH USERS ARE YOUNGER THAN iPHONE USERS
•    69% of iPod touch users are between 13-24 years of age, while this same segment represents just 26% of iPhone users.
•    74% of iPhone users are over the age of 25, compared to 31% of iPod touch users.

iPHONE USERS HAVE HIGHER INCOME LEVELS & ARE MORE LIKELY TO HAVE KIDS; BOTH DEVICES SKEW MALE
•    In line with the older demographic composition of iPhone users, they also have higher incomes.  78% of iPhone users have an annual income of at least $25,000, compared to only 66% of iPhone touch users.
•    iPhone users are more likely to have children than iPod touch users, most probably due to the age difference in the two groups.  46% of iPhone users have children, compared to only 28% percent of iPod touch users.
•    More than 70% of users on both the iPhone and iPod touch are male.

MEDIA CONSUMPTION: PREFERENCE FOR THE MOBILE WEB OVER OTHER MEDIA
•    5 in 10 consumers on both iPhone and iPod touch devices use the mobile Web more frequently than they read printed newspapers.
•    More than 40% of users of both devices reported using the Internet on their mobile device more often than using the Web from their computers or listening to the radio.

What does this research mean for advertisers?  Advertisers looking to reach a younger demographic can take advantage of AdMob’s reach on the iPod touch and advertisers looking to reach a high net worth adult audience can reach this demographic in AdMob’s iPhone network.  It’s important to partner with a mobile advertising network that offers scale in both of these devices and can target them separately to improve relevance for users and performance for advertisers.

Johanna W.
Marketing

Sharing industry-level data from eMarketer below.  Find the full article here.

eMarketer
Are iPhones Good for Advertising?
MAY 26, 2009

Young, hip and ad-friendly.

It appears that the Apple iPhone, one of the hottest gadgets from one of the most cutting-edge companies in the world, may kick mobile advertising up a notch.

According to Brightkite, Inc. and Gfk NOP, iPhone users are more likely to recall mobile ads than non-iPhone users.

iPhone users had higher rates of recall from all measured types of mobile ads than nonusers, including mobile display, standard text message (SMS), audio, picture or video messages (MMS) and mobile TV and video ads.

That’s great news for marketers, particularly at a time when other mobile manufacturers are building more touchscreen smartphones, such as the BlackBerry Storm, Palm Pre and Google Android.

If you’re ready to get started with iPhone advertising or you have questions, contact us at: trymobile at admob dot com.

Johanna W.
Marketing

Today we released the April 2009 AdMob Mobile Metrics Report, our monthly look at the traffic flowing through our network.  For the first time, we have included data from third party sources in order to help address the following questions – how does AdMob data compare to the number of handsets sold, and how does usage of mobile Web sites compare to usage of HTML sites from mobile devices?

Our first comparison is between smartphone market share based on our mobile Web and application data and market share based on the number of smartphones sold. For the handset sales estimate we used Gartner’s estimate of smartphone sales in 2008 as a proxy for the installed base of smartphones.  This comparison gives a relative measure of which devices access mobile Web more often. We found that usage on iPhone and Android devices is greater than their relative market share while usage on the Symbian, RIM, and Windows Mobile devices lagged their relative market share.

Our second comparison uses data from Net Applications as a proxy for browsing on HTML sites from smartphones. Not surprisingly, the relative usage of both mobile Web sites and HTML sites is highest on Apple and Android devices. The iPhone OS had 8 percent of the smartphone market, but generated 43 percent of mobile Web requests and 65 percent of HTML usage. Ad requests from applications contributed to this heavy usage. Take a look at page 4 of the new April 2009 report for more details.

Right now, it’s clear that usage of mobile Web sites, applications and HTML sites is growing.  But just because iPhone and Android overindex more today, it does not mean HTML sites will rule.  Here is our take.  We think that regardless of where the big players place their bets, it will be the consumer that decides what gives them the best Internet experience on their mobile device and that will be what they use.

Note that since we are making these comparisons based on data from three very different sources, which means the findings should be taken with a grain of salt. While we believe the results provide usable insight, the limitations should be noted. This is our attempt to answer the questions we receive from our publishers, developers, and advertisers.  If you are new to our Mobile Metrics report, please read our earlier blog post for more information on our methodology.

Mike F
Product Marketing

Today we released the March 2009 AdMob Mobile Metrics Report, our monthly look at trends in the AdMob Network.  At our iPhone meetup earlier this month there was a lot of discussion from the developer panel on which platforms they currently support and others they might support in the future.  So for this month’s feature, we took a look at the growth of Android.

There is no doubt that Android is growing fast and has made an impact since its launch.  The HTC Dream (G1) generates 2% of our US requests and is now the #4 smartphone behind the iPhone, Blackberry Curve, and Blackberry Pearl.   Android growth accelerated after our launch of ad units in apps at the end of January, which likely reflects strong consumer usage of applications on the Android platform.

However the question we get most often is – how does Android’s growth compare to iPhone’s growth at launch?  Our best answer: both grew more quickly than the market, but iPhone growth was much faster than Android.  To put some numbers to this, we found that Android traffic in the US grew an average of 47% per month since it launched five months ago while iPhone traffic in the US grew an average of 88% per month in the five months following the launch of their App Store. See the report for more details on the comparison.

The much faster iPhone growth is not surprising given the far larger installed base of iPhones and the huge marketing push from Apple. In March 2009, we received 8 times more traffic from iPhones in the US today than Android.  When you layer in the worldwide footprint, and the fact that the iPod touch is also there, you can see how huge of a headstart the iPhone platform has.

However when you consider that there are 1-2 million of the G1 sold in the US compared to the approximately 15 million of the iPhone sold in the US today, the ratio makes sense.  As more Android phones launch around the world and the Android OS moves to other devices such as netbooks and Mobile Internet Devices, this gap is likely to close.

The early Android data from our network suggests that the consumer appetite for apps is strong and a major factor in growth as more than half of our requests from each platform come from applications. And these apps are not just games, but movie apps, sports apps, news apps, and more that are likely to replace some browser activities. This means that yes, application stores on other platforms can be successful.

Remember that these results are only from our network.  If you are new to our Mobile Metrics report, please visit our metrics blog and read this post for more info.

Mike F.
Product Marketing