Mobile advertising firm AdMob has released some numbers on ad impressions on iPhone vs other smart phones and the result is, well, that Apple is basically a 50kg flyweight boxer competing against Sumo wrestlers 5 times it weight (8% smartphone footprint but more than 40% ad impression share).
Now, very (!) crudely put, this does not mean that it is 8 times as successful on mobile advertising. It does mean however that users are 8 times more likely to use applications where ads are being displayed. Here’s some of their stats:
iPhone Apps (in AdMob’s network):
- The top iPhone apps had more than one million users in the UK in May 2009
- 5% of iPhone apps had more than 100,000 active users in May 2009
- 14% of iPhone apps had between 10,000 – 100,000 active users in May 2009
- 27% of iPhone apps had between 1,000 – 10,000 active users in May 2009
Mobile web browsing market in May 2009:
UK:
- 48.7% of ad requests came from Apple handsets (iPhone and iPod Touch)
- 28.4% of ad requests came from the iPhone
- 282,493,761 ad requests from users in the UK
US:
- 45.1% of ad requests came from Apple handsets
- 25.7% of ad requests came from the iPhone
- 3,804,373,544 ad requests from users in the US
Global:
- 31.4% of ad requests came from Apple handsets
- 18.6% of ad requests came from the iPhone
- 7,997,946,483 ad requests from users around the world
Interestingly, MEF and MBlox Chairman Andrew Bud (who is being quoted at the end of the article) said that Apple’s app store compared to Nokia’s Ovi Store like a niche boutique to Tesco (or, if you are in the US, Walmart). Is that so? No it is not. And here’s why:
Apple is a boutique with more items on sale than a Tesco megastore. And its (less) customers buy trolleys full of wares. Moreover, their high-spending customers leave the store with a spring in their step and committed to come back the next day.
Nokia is a super-store with gazillion potential (!) customers where 1 in 20 stroll through aisles stocked with not so cool things and most of them walk out without buying anything and, on top of that, feeling fairly downtrodden and frustrated about what was on offer.
So, for the time being, I’d choose the Apple boutique. If that choice changes will depend on whether Nokia will manage to stock their shelves with more compelling wares and improve on their tills (less queuing, more bang for your buck, etc). Oh, and get those cold strip-lights replaced, please!
Industry body MEF had put out its top 10 predictions for the year a few weeks ago (inexplicably missed by me; well it was somewhere around Mobile World Congress, so probably at least excusable), which they gathered from their members and deep discussions around this. They believe that 2009 – recession and all – will be the year in which mobile entertainment (if you count everything in, apparently a $25bn industry) will start to deliver returns.
- The ‘iPhone effect’ -Mobile applications have emerged as a new content category and the mobile internet will finally come of age
- Greater value and transparency for consumers will help sustain demand in 2009
- Some delay in the proliferation of mobile advertising
- Telcos begin to acts as enablers for the Entertainment industry with services such as billing, authentication and zero tariff data
- The emerging dominance of services that operate at a multi-platform level
- The rise of ring back tones
- Social networking becomes an important driver of mobile entertainment consumption
- 2009 will be the year that mobile video really takes off
- Emerging economies will become an increasingly important driver for mobile entertainment worldwide
- A proliferation of touch screen devices drives discoverability and content usage
But let’s have a closer look at a few of the points:
