India snags APAC mobile ad crown
India is the largest mobile advertising market in the Asia-Pacific region with 5.8 billion impressions monthly, according to a new report.
Released Thursday by InMobi, the report showed that the Indian market grew by over 1 billion impressions over a 90-day period between July and October last year, reflecting an increase of 22 percent. An impression refers the delivery of an advertisement to a user.
"The Indian mobile advertising market continues to show rapid growth due to the improving ad ecosystem," said James Lamberti, vice president of global research and marketing, in a statement." Major publishers are bringing their media into the mobile channel while brands are simultaneously discovering the power of mobile advertising."
In addition, 3G network infrastructure improvements in the country will also help propel India to become one of the most influential markets in mobile advertising, the executive noted.
Other data revealed that smartphones "remain relatively nascent" in India's mobile ad market, with 88 percent of all impressions served on advanced phones. Indian mobile users also favored Nokia, with the Finnish mobile maker's devices occupying 12 of the 15 top devices.
InMobi's co-founder Amit Gupta added: "With so many consumers using mobile devices as a primary means to digital media consumption, mobile is the complimentary media channel to TV for reach extension while still maintaining a compelling brand experience that will only improve as smartphones penetrate at scale over the next year."
Like India, Nokia-manufactured devices also took the top spot (57 percent) in mobile ad impressions for the rest of the Asia-Pacific region, according to a separate InMobi report released on Wednesday. While Apple's iPhone was the top device, the remaining nine in the top 10 devices belonged to Nokia.
In terms of operating platforms, Apple's iPhone OS and Google's Android saw their share of impressions improve by 9.3 percent within the same period, although they still trailed Nokia and Symbian OS, which together accounted for 41.2 percent of the region's impressions.
Between July and October, the region registered a 9 percent increase at just under 1 billion impressions, driven by huge increases in smartphone impressions.
Robert Woolfrey, InMobi's director of brand sales in the Asia-Pacific region, pointed out that with the increasing adoption of smartphones in the region, advertisers are able to leverage creatively on a new platform to potentially reach millions of consumers.
"The smartphone revolution in the region will only enhance that trend in 2011," he said.