The iPad may be the
dominant tablet brand, but Android-based rivals are registering on radar as mobile ad vehicles in their own right. New findings from Millennial Media show a trio of tablets made its ranking of top 20
mobile devices by mobile ad impressions for the first time in the first quarter.
In addition to the iPad, that select group included the Samsung Galaxy Tab and Amazon’s Kindle Fire. The
Apple tablet actually increased its share of the market in the first quarter to 68%, per IDC.
That gain came partly at the expense of the Kindle Fire, whose share fell to just 4% following a
steep post-holiday falloff in sales.
Total tablet sales during the quarter more than doubled to 17.4 million from 7.9 million in the year-earlier period. That translates into more tablet
advertising. The Millennial report showed that the share of impressions from connected devices including tablets increased to 20% in the first quarter, up from 15% a year ago.
Smartphones
still account for the vast majority of impressions, at 73%, with feature phones representing just 7% -- down from 23% a year ago. When it comes to mobile operating systems, Android accounted for
nearly half (49%) the impressions on Millennial’s network, followed by iOS (33%), BlackBerry (14%), Windows Phone (3%) and Symbian (1%).
The iPhone itself, however, remained the top
handset -- driving 15% of impressions with the BlackBerry Curve and Motorola Droid Razr the next closest, with about 4% share each. On the strength of the iPhone and iPad, Apple was the leading
manufacturer, with 28.3% share, well ahead of Samsung (18.2%), HTC (11.3%), and Motorola and Research in Motion, both at about 10%.
Among applications, games was the top category, followed by
music and entertainment, social media, communications and productivity and tools. Sports didn’t make the top five categories, but it generated almost twice the number of impressions from the
fourth quarter due to apps tied to major events, like the Super Bowl and the NCAA tournament.
The Millennial data also pointed to a growing video audience on mobile devices. The company said
the number of video ads viewed has increased 10-fold in the quarter compared to a year ago. comScore research showed YouTube ranks as a top 10 app on both the Android and iOS platforms.
Millennial, which went public in March, said it has 300 million unique visitors worldwide generating 45 billion impressions a month. Beyond that, it supports 7,000 device types and models and
30,000 apps are enabled to run ads on its platform.