Mobile ad company Millennial Media found that Android ad revenue has, for the first time ever, beaten iPhone ad revenue on the company’s ad network.
According to its September “Mobile Mix” report, Android is the second-largest device on its network, and has been since July 2010. Since that time, Android has increased its share of impressions 2% month-over-month and is now at 29%. In comparison, Apple’s iOS platform, in the top spot, accounts for 46% of impressions. That makes the news that Android ads generated more revenue last month even more startling.
Sponsor
Another factoid served up by the new report: Android ad requests have grown 1,283% since January. RIM ad requests have grown 143% (assumedly because new Blackberry OS devices finally have a usable browser?). But Apple ad requests have only grown 18%. What these numbers point to is Android’s rapid growth this year. Although the OS may not have the raw mobile ad impression numbers of its iOS counterpart on Millennial’s network, it has been coming online with the company in increasingly large numbers.
Of course, the biggest the news today is the ad revenue. How is that Android ads generated more revenue with less impressions? In fact, All Things D’s Peter Kafta raised an eyebrow at Millennial’s data this morning, especially given what he says is the “seemingly contradictory chart” which shows Apple devices generate “significantly more ad impressions than Android phones.”
Yes, that does seem odd.
Except for one thing: the chart is looking at “iOS” devices, which means iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch combined, while the data point about ad revenue is comparing just iPhone to Android. And the iPhone only makes up 19.28% of Millennial’s network. So maybe it’s not as odd as you would first think?
Kafta also notes that Millennial Media is a small ad network so this doesn’t point to a larger trend as it doesn’t take into account other ad dollars like those coming from Apple’s iAds or Google Search revenue. That’s true, too.
Why Did This Happen?
However, no matter how small the data point, it seems interesting that with less impressions, Android ads are generating more revenue even on a small network like this. Let’s say this isn’t bad or “junk” data, but instead ask the real question here: why? Are Android users just more prone to clicking…err…tapping on ads? Are Android apps more likely to lead to “accidental” ad clicks through poor design? Are iPhone users somehow more savvy when it comes to avoiding ads? Are there simply more ads in the top Android apps (which are also more likely to be free and ad-supported than paid)? Please share your thoughts in the comments.
0 Responses
Stay in touch with the conversation, subscribe to the RSS feed for comments on this post.