75% of Android OS devices still in North America claim AdMob

AdMob may be best known at this point for their new Google overlords, but they've also been finding time to carry out mobile market research.  In their latest report they turned to iPhone OS and Android platform adoption worldwide, comparing unique devices running each OS.  Turns out, 75-percent of Android devices they spotted were in North America, compared to only 49-percent of iPhone OS devices.

That's despite strong Android popularity in China, where as of April 2010 there were more Android devices than iPhones.  Apparently the most popular devices running the open-source Google OS there are the HTC Hero, HTC Magic and HTC Dream (aka the T-Mobile G1).

Western Europe seems more keen on the iPhone OS than they are about Android right now, though, with 28-percent of iPhone OS devices spotted there compared to 11-percent of Android devices.  The region has seen 269-percent growth in iPhone OS adoption over the past twelve months.

Press Release:

AdMob April 2010 Metrics Report Examines Global Base of Android and iPhone Devices

75 Percent of Android OS Devices are in North America, Compared to 49 Percent of iPhone OS Devices

AdMob, one of the world's largest mobile advertising networks, compares unique devices running the Android and iPhone Operating Systems (OS) in its network in the April 2010 AdMob Mobile Metrics Report. The Android OS had its greatest concentration of unique devices in North America (75 percent) in April 2010, followed by Asia (12 percent) and Western Europe (11 percent). iPhone OS devices are more broadly distributed worldwide, but also had its greatest concentration in North America (49 percent), followed by Western Europe (28 percent) and Asia (14 percent).

In the US there was a 2 to 1 ratio of iPhone OS devices to Android OS devices, worldwide that ratio expanded to 3.5 to 1. In AdMob's network there were 8.7 million unique Android OS devices and 10.7 million unique iPhones in the United States in April 2010. But when non-phone devices running the iPhone OS – the iPod touch and iPad – are the number of unique devices jumps to 18.3 million in the US. Worldwide there were 11.6 million unique Android OS devices, 27.4 million unique iPhones and 40.8 million unique iPhone OS devices.

Highlights from the April 2010 AdMob Mobile Metrics Report include:

The top five countries with the most unique iPhone OS devices were the United States (44 percent), United Kingdom (nine percent), France (six percent), Canada (five percent), and Japan (four percent).

Over the past 12 months, unique iPhone OS device growth was strongest in Asia (474 percent), followed by Oceania (367 percent) and Western Europe (269 percent).

The top five countries with the most unique Android OS devices were the United States (75 percent), China (eight percent), United Kingdom (three percent), France (two percent), and Germany (two percent).

There were more Android devices than iPhones in China in April 2010 in the AdMob network. The top three Android devices in China were the HTC Hero, HTC Magic, and HTC Dream.

AdMob stores and analyses handset and operator data from every ad request in its network of more than 23,000 mobile Web sites and iPhone, Android, webOS, and Flash Lite applications to optimise ad serving. Each month, the AdMob Mobile Metrics Report aggregates this data to provide insights into major trends in the mobile ecosystem. AdMob defines a unique user as an individual device that has sent at least one ad request to the AdMob network in a given month. See additional detail on the methodology of the report at http://metrics.admob.com/2009/10/placing-admob-metrics-in-context/.

Visit AdMob's Metrics Report blog (http://metrics.admob.com) to access the full April 2010 report, view past reports, or sign up to get an email notification when future reports become available.