Dirty Aura

There are precious few public numbers about actual internet usage of different mobile devices although this information is valuable for businesses developing mobile internet applications and web sites. For example many site owners have noticed iPhone’s importance and Google representative revealed shocking effect of this iPhone phenomenon, but there aren’t much public stats out there to prove it.

Fortunately, a mobile ad provider AdMob releases monthly reports that contain device statistics and other juicy tidbits of information about ads they have served. AdMob serves ads for over 6000 mobile web sites around the globe.

What is interesting is that this data is about real worldwide mobile internet usage. It’s not sales numbers of internet capable models that don’t really tell how people use their phones. Although it’s heavily skewed, it’s also not limited only to a specific geographic region or a single site. This kind of data is scarcely publicly available outside of big internet companies thus big kudos goes to AdMob for making it available.

iPhone is growing fast

I compiled the below graph of trends in manufacturer shares of mobile internet traffic from AdMob’s reports to investigate how iPhone fares currently. The graph gives further proof  of iPhone becoming a formidable player in mobile internet despite a lower amount of sold units than many competitors.

The real share of S60 3rd edition

Personally, I’m most interested in comparing different mobile operating systems and how people use internet on them. Unfortunately Symbian-based OSes are usually lumped together, although in a native development it’s a considerable development effort to support both S60 2nd edition and  S60 3rd edition phones. For this reason, I examined AdMob’s top device charts.

In a worldwide top 20 devices, there are three S60 2nd ed. devices. I knew that 5 year old Nokia 6600 had been a hit for several years in many countries, but I was surprised to see it still in top 20. All in all, S60 3rd ed devices account for 37% of Nokia devices in top 20. Using 40% as a crude estimate for 3rd ed. devices gives 13% share of worldwide mobile internet traffic is originating from S60 3rd ed. devices. That’s a very different impression than a quick look would give (In AdMob’s reports the overall share of Symbian of smartphone originated requests is 49%). It is also in line with illustrative math games that I gave in my Slush talk in last November.

If you study reports carefully, you can’t miss the small share that Windows Mobile has. According to July 08 report HTC devices account almost half of Windows Mobile usage. Using that as an estimate makes Windows Mobile’s share max. 4% of all traffic in November 08. That’s especially poor given that AdMob’s stats are skewed somewhat towards US market. This unimportance of Windows Mobile as a mobile platform was earlier pointed out and analyzed by Russell Buckley (via Tero Lehto).

It will be interesting to follow how Android fares during spring. November 08 report shows already 2% share in US traffic. Another interesting perspective is to keep eye on the importance of mobile web in Asian and Latin American countries. For example, I’ve personally witnessed Indonesians as heavy SMS users in Jaiku and they are also one of the biggest user groups in the virtual mobile world Mini Friday (the little brother of Habbo Hotel). AdMob’s October 08 report reveals that iPhone is a dominating player in two huge Latin American markets: Mexico (25.0%) and Brazil (31.8%).

Shortcomings of AdMob’s data

To understand how skewed AdMob’s data is it’s informative to inspect other changes in the graph. In May 2008, a big Indonesian advertiser joined AdMob network and we can see noticeable raise in Nokia’s share and a similar drop in BlackBerry maker RIM’s share. Indonesia is a strong market for Nokia (63.7% in Nov 08) and RIM is non-existent there. This just shows that AdMob network is still too small to give us a really representative sample.

Other fact worth noting is that Europe is clearly underrepresented in AdMob’s statistics. Following table, taken from November 08 report, shows geographic distribution of requests.  Africa on the other hand is overrepresented which is explained by AdMob’s strong foothold in South Africa.

Despite these shortcomings, I find AdMob’s data very valuable as it describes actual mobile internet usage. Let’s hope they keep publishing and improving it, after all it’s a great advertising strategy to offer this kind of valuable data for free when their main income is ad serving.