AdMob: Apple may break its tie with Nokia for world domination

It’s almost like Apple and Nokia are locked in a neck-and-neck game of Risk. The former, with its iPhone OS, is the dominant force in North America, Western Europe, Latin America and Oceania, while the latter, running the Symbian OS, still leads in Africa, Asia and Eastern Europe, according to December 2009 survey data published by mobile advertising network AdMob. But data shows that Apple may finally be making inroads on a global level.

It’s important to note that these conclusions don’t refer to handset sales or ownership around the world — only web and application use. The company only looks at how many ads are served on which handsets and operating systems in each region.

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For the most part, the exact percentages of ads served by AdMob in each region aren’t that illuminating — though it is interesting that 83 percent were delivered to iPhones in Oceania (that’s some massive market share). What’s more intriguing is that Apple has successfully chipped away at Nokia’s territory over the course of 2009. About 15 percent less ads were served to Nokia handsets over the course of the year, and 27 percent more ads were served to iPhones and iPod Touches.

Apple still has a negligible presence in Africa (AdMob’s report didn’t even assign it a percentage), but with 15 percent of ad requests coming from Asia, and 23 percent from Eastern Europe, it appears to have sizable footholds poised for growth in both areas. Nokia better watch its back — that seems to be the AdMob report’s overarching storyline.

Other interesting facts and figures include:

• Android bagged an even larger share of mobile ad traffic, with 36 percent of AdMob ad requests in the U.S. coming from phones running the Android OS (up from 27 percent in November), and 20 percent coming from HTC handsets. Worldwide, 11 percent came from HTC phones and 19 percent came from those running Android OS.
• India came in second place when it comes to AdMob ad requests, with 627.3 million, trailing the U.S.’s 5.5 billion. Indonesia followed with 486 million ads served. This foreshadows even more rapid growth for the mobile advertising market in South Asia.
• In the U.S., both Samsung and Motorola beat out HTC and RIM as top device manufacturers, according to AdMob’s figures. It will be interesting to see the impact of the Nexus One in the company’s January metrics report.
• RIM continues to serve a niche fan base, maintaining its 3 percent market share worldwide.