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Android Passes iOS in Mobile Ad Revenues

May 18th, 2015

Android Passes iOS in Mobile Ad Revenues
David Bell

by David Bell

CEO at Gummicube, Inc.

The mobile revenue share continues to trend toward Android. Last year, Android passed iOS in share of mobile ad impressions, or ad traffic. According to Opera Software's latest "State of Mobile Advertising" report - Android now leads in mobile ad revenues as well. For mobile ad revenues only, iOS monetizes 3 times better than Android. That is to say, in aggregate, an ad shown on iOS makes 3x that of an ad impression on an Android device.

Ratio of Share of Revenue

Why the huge difference?

There are several explanations - all making a bigger point: On the whole, users of iOS are very different than users of Android devices. For starters, Android dominates the < $200 smartphone market (and Apple the > $500 market), which leads to....

Self-Selection

iPhone users pay more for their device, and have essentially self-selected into a more valuable target market. More disposable income, greater investment in a device = more valuable ad space.

Screen Shot 2015-05-18 at 12.32.56 PM

Android leads in countries where advertising rates are lower

Mobile Advertising Share by OS Similar to self-selection and directly related to offering < $200 devices, Android leads in countries with smaller GDP's per capita. Users with less disposable income - leading to less valuable ad space. For Android to pass iOS in ad revenues with IOS still taking home 3x more revenue per impression means Android must have more than 3x the impressions.

Traffic and Revenue share by OS

In fact, in 12 months time, Android took over the top spot with 42.8% of the global share of ad impressions in Q114, to 65.17% in Q115. The mobile story continues to be how fast and how broad mobile has been adopted, across geographies and the socioeconomic spectrum.

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