AdMob, the leader in on-device mobile advertising, has released its metrics for September 2007 and the results show some pretty interesting and dramatic trends. Perhaps most interesting is the sheer number of advertisements served at 1,593,653,162. Yes that is a one billion plus figure you’re looking at.
Of this total, it appears that 42.2% of these advertisements were delivered in North America with India a distant second at 10%. I don’t know whether this is a factor of strength in sales on the ground in the US being far greater than elsewhere or if the demand for advertising is that much greater in the US than in other places. The numbers clearly don’t tell the whole story but I’ve been talking about bringing Omar the CEO of AdMob on for an interview as a reprise to a very well received discussion that he and I had back when I was writing another publication and perhaps this is the impetus to make that happen sooner rather than later as I’m sure that I’m not the only one that is curious about some of the details that these numbers only being to hint at.

The data reveals some other interesting facts. Handset metrics are unsurprising as Nokia runs away with the lead at 30.% while Motorola, Samsung and Sony Ericsson are in a virtual tie for second with 13.3%, 12.1% and 11.2% respectively which is probably within the margin of error for that analysis. This bodes well for the Finnish phone giant, is a strong indicator of their improving market position for Sony Ericsson and probably is scaring the crap out of Samsung and Motorola management.

This is especially interesting when you recall the discrepancy between international and US gross ad delivery metrics. Bear in mind that the US is and has historically been one of Nokia’s weakest markets and one that Motorola has typically dominated, especially since launching their home run RAZR device a few years ago. It is evident that the company has slid badly when they’re nearly neck and neck with Sony Ericsson and essentially tied with Samsung, two companies that the US electronics manufacturer had probably ceased to regard as competition back during their recent handset dominant days.

Looking at the US-only handset data it is even clearer how dominant Nokia is on a global level as they’re a distant fourth to Motorola, falling behind both Rimm and Samsung in this country. In fact, among the top ten most popular handset models to which AdMob has delivered advertising in the US, not a single Nokia device is to be found.

It is pretty clear evidence that Nokia owns the rest of the world when a lackluster showing in a market as big as the US doesn’t result in the loss of category dominance or confer it upon a US market leader.

The United Kingdom market is also interesting if not anomalous. Sony Ericsson is the most popular brand as well as the maker of the most popular handset. What’s really interesting from my perspective, however, is which handsets are popular. The UK has long been considered one of the most advanced markets when it comes to mobile phone users and these statistics appear to bear that out with the ten most popular devices being of a far higher average cost (and which much expanded mobile multi-media capabilities) than any of the other countries listed.

We’ve been looking at Europe as a potential indicator of where the mobile markets are going and I think this approach will continue to be sensible based upon this information that has been so generously made available by Admob.

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