Opera says iOS is still top platform for mobile advertising

Opera (yes, the browser people) published its first ever State of Mobile Advertising report this week, a study regarding the effectiveness of advertising on different mobile platforms.

As you might have expected, Apple’s iOS came out on top. Despite Android’s lead in overall marketshare, users seem to browse the web and click on ads more on Apple’s mobile OS…

According to the report, which pulled data from more than 35 billion monthly ad impressions, iOS accounted for 61% of mobile advertising revenue last quarter. Android came in a distant second with 26.56%, and everyone else was in the single digits.

Opera also tallied up each platform’s eCPM (or effective cost per mile), which essentially measures the effectiveness of an ad by dividing ad impressions by click-throughs. The average eCPM for iOS was $2.49, $2.10 on Android, and less than a $1 on both RIM and Windows Phone.

As you can see, the data actually paints a really bleak picture for mobile platforms outside of the two-horse race. For example, Android and iOS accounted for just over 70% of the mobile traffic recorded on Opera’s ad network last quarter, and RIM and Windows Phone didn’t make it out of the single digits combined.

While all of this may seem boring on the surface, mobile advertising effectiveness is pretty big deal for platforms. There’s a lot of money in this business, and as you know, everyone generally flocks to where the money’s at. Opera says that its mobile ad network alone drove over $240 million in ad revenue last year.

Keep in mind that this is the first edition of Opera’s Mobile Advertising report, and it doesn’t cover traffic from the entire web. But given the size of the sample, and the company’s background, the information is still worth taking a look at.

[AppleInsider]