Smartphones now account for half of AdMob traffic

By Ewan MacLeod

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Smartphones Now Account For Half Of Admob Traffic

AdMob’s metrics report is out today and there’s some interesting stats to ponder.

The first point to consider:

More and more people are upgrading to smartphones. This can only be good news for the marketplace.

The strong growth of iPhone and Android traffic, fueled by heavy application usage, was primarily responsible for increase. Although the share of feature phone traffic in AdMob’s network declined from 58 percent to 35 percent year-over-year, absolute traffic from feature phones still grew 31 percent. Mobile Internet devices experienced the strongest growth of the three categories, increasing to account for 17 percent of traffic in AdMob’s network in February 2010. The iPod touch is the top mobile Internet device and is responsible for vast majority of this traffic, other devices include the Sony PSP and Nintendo DSi.

Highlights from the February 2010 AdMob Mobile Metrics Report include:

That’s pretty impressive — but to be expected given AdMob’s heavy emphasis toward the platform. Good news for publishers and advertising chasing iPhone users!

Next up, Symbian…

This is why Nokia and Symbian is viewed as more or less irrelevant by much of the American media and application developer space. It is perhaps to be expected, given the reach AdMob has embedded on applications and on sites heavily frequented by iPhone/Android users. Let’s look at Android:

That’s pretty dramatic, given the number of handsets that shipped last year.

Now let’s get some more Android focused perspective:

And now a nod to the rest of the marketplace:

[Note: Do remember that AdMob’s stats, whilst indicative, are based on being able to track users viewing AdMob inventory. So if you visit Mobile Industry Review on your mobile, you’re being tracked by AdMob (since we carry ads there) but if you *ONLY* visit The Application Review on your mobile, you won’t be tracked and your usage won’t be included in AdMob’s metrics. So do keep a pinch of salt around when you’re evaluating the stats in the context of the whole industry.]

You can pick up the full report here.