Millennial Media, one of the biggest mobile advertising companies in the U.S., has released its quarterly ad impression report, showing Apple as the single-biggest brand and most popular phone maker on the Millennial ad network. The rest of the list, meanwhile, is dominated by Android.
Based on brand, Apple has a strong lead in the field of device makers. Apple's iPhones, iPads and iPods are wildly popular, and fetched the company a 28.32 percent share of all devices on the network. Samsung followed as Apple's closest competitor, with a share of 18.25 percent of the overall market impressions. RIM dropped to No.5 on the list of top manufacturers, with 10.16 percent of all devices. Nokia, once the king of mobile handset vendors, has now slipped to No.10, with just 0.91 percent of mobile devices.
Handsets in the Top 20
When it comes to individual handset models, Apple's impressive portfolio has its strength built around one single device. Apple had only the iPhone in the Top 20 (model is not specified), but the iPhone's popularity was great enough to snatch 15.1 percent of the market. BlackBerry Curve comes as the next-closest competitor, with a 4.44 percent share of the market.
While Apple had just one device, other handset makers rely on several models. RIM, for instance, has five handsets in the top 20, together accounting for 12 percent of impressions, while 14 of the top 20 mobile phones ranked by ad impressions were Android-operated. The Android platform generates the majority of traffic overall, thanks to the wide variety of mobile makers that built their handsets with Google's operating system. Samsung had four handsets in the top 20, together accounting for eight percent of impressions. HTC had four models in the top 20 as well, while Motorola had three.
Tablet Usage Taking Off
Millennial further noted that tablet usage is really taking off, already up 33 percent over last year, but smartphones are still making up most of the traffic. Collectively, smartphone traffic accounted for 73 percent of all ad impression traffic, up 62 percent from the previous year, while traffic from tablets and other non-smartphone devices increased from 15 percent to 20 percent.
"Tablets and other non-phone connected devices have established a clear role in the growing mobile ecosystem," said Millennial Media's Product SVP Jamie Fellows, as cited by Vator. "The substantial quarterly growth of impressions in this category is tied to both increased usage and adoption, and we expect this trend to continue in the foreseeable future."
Android Still the Dominant Platform
In terms of platforms, Apple is the leader based on single brand, but the variety of Android device makers continues to boost Google to the top. Android now holds 49 percent of all impressions, compared to iOS' 33 percent. According to Millennial, Android surpassed iOS as the dominant platform in 2011. BlackBerry comes third, with 14 percent.
