AdMob Mobile Metrics

January 2010 Metrics – App Survey Data

We recently released our January 2010 Mobile Metrics Report including data on an opt-in survey of users on iPhone, iPod touch, Android and webOS devices. Attached is a presentation that includes the results from the survey in greater detail.

For additional perspective, here are links to a couple articles that reference data in our latest report:

• Jennifer Valentino-DeVries of the Wall Street Journal Digits blog opines on the problems plaguing Palm
• Fortune’s Phillip Elmer Dewitt explains 6 ways iPhone and Android users differ
• TechCrunch’s Robin Waters discusses our finding that 91% Of iPhone Users Would Recommend Their Device Vs. 69% Of webOS Users

You can find results from the survey we ran six months ago here.

Harsh Shah

Q4 2009 Southeast Asia Report

We regularly receive requests to do deeper dives into regions within the AdMob network.  As a complement to our usual Monthly Report, we’ve produced an additional report this month that highlights countries within Southeast Asia including India, Indonesia, Australia, Philippines, Thailand, Vietnam, Malaysia, Singapore and Hong Kong.

Some of the highlights from the report include:

• Nokia has a deeply entrenched position in the region with 52% of manufacturer share based on Q4 2009 traffic, and the Nokia N90 is the most popular Symbian OS device in most countries.
• In Indonesia, Vietnam and India, Nokia is the dominant handset manufacturer.  The vast majority of traffic in these countries comes from feature phones.  The trends in these countries are broadly reflective of trends in the region.
• Singapore, Hong Kong and Australia exhibit different trends than most of the countries in the region.  Smartphones are more prevalent in these three areas with the iPhone OS being the most widely used operating system.
• The percentage of smartphone traffic varies widely across the region.  Singapore had the greatest amount of traffic from smartphone devices at 77% of Q4 2009 requests and Vietnam had the lowest at 22%.

For those new to the Metrics report, please visit this blog post for more information on the methodology and how to use the numbers in context.

We look forward to providing more regional data in the future.  As always, you can email your comments to metrics@admob.com.  While we can’t respond to all emails, we welcome your feedback.

Harsh Shah

January 2010 Mobile Metrics Report

For this month’s feature section, we ran an opt-in survey of consumers on iPhone, iPod touch, Android and webOS devices to learn more about how they are engaging and interacting with applications.  The behavioral and demographic insights taken from the self reported survey provide additional context to the traffic trends we report on each month.  The survey included 963 respondents across all of the platforms and revealed some interesting points on app purchasing habits:

• Android and iPhone users download a similar number of apps every month and spend a similar amount of time using the apps.
• iPod touch users download an average of 12 apps a month, 37% more apps than iPhone and Android users.
• webOS users downloaded fewer total apps per month, relative to iPhone OS users and Android users.  This may be related to the fewer number of apps in the webOS App Catalog.

As always, it’s important to take methodology into consideration when reviewing the results of any survey.  You can find more details on our methodology in page 3 of the report.  One thing to note is that many of the survey respondents were sourced through in-app ads, which could have resulted in a selection bias of active app users.  Also note that we did not include RIM users in the survey, because AdMob does not currently serve ads into Blackberry apps and we wanted to be able to compare similar methodologies across platforms.

You can find all of the data from the previous survey here or download the July 2009 Metrics reports for the highlights.

Email your comments on the report to metrics@admob.com.

Harsh Shah

December 2009 Mobile Metrics Report

Today we released the December edition of our Mobile Metrics report, our monthly look at the data flowing through our network.  This month we look at several key metrics including manufacturer share, operating system share, top devices, and top smartphones for each region in our network.  At a glance, the data shows large regional differences in the devices that are accessing the mobile web.

Remember AdMob data is based on the usage of mobile sites and apps, which is very different than if you were to look at estimates of device sales from Gartner, IDC, or your favorite Wall Street analyst.  For those new to the Metrics report, visit this blog post for details on the report methodology.

Here are links to a couple additional Metrics blogs that have been posted since the November report was released:

* Mobile Browsing Trends from Quantcast – data on browsing on Internet sites from mobile devices
* Metrics Update: Android – updated Android statistics for December
* Another Huge Christmas for the iPod touch – geographic distribution of new iPod touch devices

Email your comments on the report to metrics@admob.com.  We unfortunately can’t respond to all emails, but your feedback is welcome and helps us shape future reports.

Mobile Browsing Trends from Quantcast

Quantcast, an online audience measurement company, released its network statistics last week on mobile browsing.  The content of the report is very similar to the usage data we share in the Metrics report and includes statistics on mobile operating systems, handset manufacturers, and other interesting tidbits.  However the data is based on mobile devices browsing the same Internet sites as those browsed by a computer, while AdMob data is based on traffic from mobile specific sites and applications.

The below chart of Operating System Share by Region is taken from page 13 of the report.

Interestingly, the highlights of the report are very similar to the trends we have seen in our network – dominant Apple share,  Android overtaking RIM in North America, the rapid growth of Droid – despite a different type of mobile browsing on a different set of publishers.  More report highlights can be found on page 2 of the report.

For more details download the comprehensive report from the Quantcast site or take a look at the TechCrunch article.

Mike

Metrics Update: Android

Just two months ago we outlined why we were bullish on the Android platform.  Since then the outlook has brightened even further.  Data from our network suggests several key themes over the last two months:

• Rapid growth: Worldwide requests from Android devices increased 97% from October to December. AdMob received over 1 billion ad requests from Android devices in Dec 09.
• Increased manufacturer diversity:  In October, 98% of requests came from HTC devices.  In December, 56% of requests were from HTC devices, 39% from Motorola devices, and 5% from Samsung.
• Increased device diversity: In December, 7 devices generated more than 3% of requests each: the Motorola Droid, HTC Dream, HTC Magic, HTC Hero, Motorola CLIQ, HTC Droid Eris, and the Samsung Moment.  This is up from only 3 devices in October (HTC Dream, HTC Magic, and HTC Hero).
• Droid Invasion:  The Motorola Droid is already the leading Android handset in the AdMob network and generated 30% of requests in December.
• US leads Android adoption:  90% of Android traffic was in the US in December, up from 84% in October.  Top countries by requests are the US, UK, Germany, France, and Canada, respectively.

This chart of traffic by handset in our network pretty much sums it all up:

These statistics are based on the ad requests we receive from mobile sites and applications in the AdMob network.  Please visit this post for more info on how to interpret our statistics.

Another Huge Christmas for the iPod touch

Last December was the coming out party for the iPod touch and early data from mobile analytics companies, app developers, Amazon.com, and anecdotal evidence all suggests another hugely successful holiday season for this device.

AdMob’s usage data suggests that new iPod touch devices were responsible for a majority of the increase in App Store activity the day after Christmas.  Ad requests from iPod touches increased 96% on December 26 compared to the average from the week prior, while requests from iPhones only increased 12% over the same time frame.

In terms of actual devices, there was a 57% increase in the number of iPod touch devices used on December 26th compared to average daily usage of the week before Christmas.  Device growth was strong across the top markets, particularly in the UK.  This consistent worldwide performance is similar to the international expansion of Apple devices we highlighted in our last Metrics report.

The 57% increase in unique daily users is a combination of both new iPod touch users and existing users who were active on December 26th, so this doesn’t necessarily mean the number of iPod touches sold was that high a percentage of active iPod touches.  But the evidence does lead us to believe there were several million new iPod touch owners around the world this Christmas.  In the next Metrics report we’ll compare November and December data to get a more detailed look at the impact of holiday gifts.

Mike

Updated iPhone OS Stats

We received a couple requests recently for the distribution of the iPhone Operating System versions we see throughout our network.  The data below represents the percentage of worldwide traffic we saw from the iPhone and iPod touch from December 14-21st.

It shows that iPod touch users lag iPhone users in upgrading their OS; 97% of our iPhone traffic comes from 3.0 or higher, compared to only 68% of iPod touch traffic.

For developers working on Android applications, platform version might become even more important than it is for iPhone given the wide variety of handsets and capabilities already available.  Fortunately, the Android team has announced a device dashboard based on devices that visit the Android Market.  Visit the Android developer blog for details or the actual dashbaord for the most recent data.

November 2009 Mobile Metrics Report

For this month’s report we review some of the trends we have seen throughout 2009.  We discuss the rise of smartphones, increased WiFi usage, and the continued growth of the iPhone and Android platforms.

Apple is on track to sell over 40 million iPhone and iPod touches this year worldwide.  Although the US remains by far the largest market for Apple devices, we’ve seen faster growth of Apple users from outside the US.  In November, 50% of the unique iPhone and iPod touches that requested an AdMob ad were outside the US, compared to only 39% in January 2009.  The chart below shows user growth for the Top 10 countries by Apple device in the AdMob network.

The US and Canada show slower growth, although that’s likely due to a larger base of users to start the year.  Page 4 of the report shows the distribution of iPhone and iPod touch users by country.  These devices clearly have global appeal, as the recent launch in South Korea showed.

Keep in mind the chart above only represents devices that requested an ad on a given day.  Mobile operator KT claimed to have signed up 90k iPhone subscribers since the launch on Nov 28th, and our data certainly supports rapid adoption in the country.

Last December iPod touch traffic doubled the day after Christmas.  We’ll see what the effect of all of the new devices is this year soon.  Happy Holidays!

Mike

Great results from RIM

Today’s stellar earnings announcement from RIM is more evidence of continuing smartphone growth.  Despite growing competition, RIM sold more than 10 million devices in the quarter, a record for the company, with strong growth coming from outside of North America and in the consumer segment.

Last month (see the blog post below), we looked at the distribution of RIM handsets in the AdMob network and you can see evidence of the adoption of new RIM handsets.

As a reminder, the statistics we share in our Metrics Report are influenced by our publisher base and product offerings.  We have an SDK for iPhone and Android apps, and just released a beta SDK for webOS.  However we currently do not serve ads into RIM apps, which influences the traffic we see from the platform.  See this blog post for more info on interpreting the data in the Metrics report.

Tomorrow we’ll be releasing our November report reviewing some of the key trends we saw throughout 2009.

Mike