Google’s Android and Apple’s iOS remained tied for the top spot in U.S. mobile advertising in November, with both platforms holding 38 percent ad-impression shares, according to Millennial Media. Among mobile gadgets, however, Apple led the field last month with a 25.5 percent share, based on the number of ad impressions delivered to the iPhone (14.78 percent), iPod touch (8.96 percent) and iPad (1.76 percent).
Although Android and iOS were tied on ad impressions, Android apps beat Apple’s offerings last month, Millennial said. The company monitors the largest mobile-media audience for brand advertisers in the United States. Android represented 54 percent of Millennial’s application platform mix, followed by Apple at 39 percent.
Android has been “averaging 10 percent growth month over month for the past four consecutive months,” noted Millennial Senior Vice President Mack McKelvey.
Steady, Solid Growth
Although the mobile-advertising market is starting from a very small base, it has been showing solid growth, according to ABI Research. About one-third of the smartphone owners the research firm polled this year said they had clicked on at least one mobile advertisement.
“There was a shift starting at the end of last year from the pioneering phase to what we might call the ‘early growth phase,'” noted ABI Practice Director Neil Strother. “By now, probably 20 percent of all major companies have done something with mobile marketing, and some of them are doing so repeatedly.”
Spending on mobile ads accelerated with the arrival of the autumn back-to-school season and year-end holidays and is expected to approach $1 billion for all of 2010, according to ABI. “Today’s mobile campaigns can cost $100,000 or more, and annual budgets may run to several million dollars,” Strother said.
And smartphones are not the only targets advertisers have in mind. Though 58 percent of the mobile devices serving up ad impressions…