• Venture Beat, Thursday, January 21, 2010 3:44 PM

A December survey by mobile ad network AdMob indicates that Apple could be gaining globally on archrival Nokia -- at least with regard to web and application use. As it stands, Apple is the dominant force in North America, Western Europe, Latin America and Oceania, while Nokia -- the world's largest phone maker -- still leads in Africa, Asia and Eastern Europe.

Based on how many ads are served on which handsets and operating systems in each region, AdMob finds that Apple successfully chipped away at Nokia's territory over the course of 2009. Indeed, about 15% less ads were served to Nokia handsets over the course of the year, while 27% more ads were served to iPhones and iPod Touches. Also of note, Android claimed an even larger share of mobile ad traffic, with 36% of AdMob ad requests in the U.S. coming from phones running Google's mobile operating system.

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