Opera Mediaworks has a issued its fourth quarter report on mobile advertising showing that the year as a whole saw a significant increase in the mobile ad market.
On its platform alone, Opera Mediaworks has seen a significant increase in global ad traffic year over year reaching over 425 million consumers, while serving over 60 billion impressions a month.
Driving this engagement was the number of new phones coming to the market. The Opera Mediaworks report shows that the three days around Christmas (December 24, 25 and 26), the number of smartphones and tablets, increased by 13% in the United States and 22% in Europe, reflecting strong sales of these devices during the holiday season.
The report also showed that while revenue from iOS is still high, Android now drives a majority of mobile ad traffic to phones. In Q4, iOS devices captured 56% of revenue, up from 50% in Q3. However, when comparing iPhone to Android phone traffic, Android tops out with a nearly 36% share (vs. iPhone’s 28.7%).
It’s a social world and the report reinforces the fact that social networking sites and apps are the most popular. Traffic volume for social networking services was the highest at 34.25% of all global traffic. The Music, Video & Media category followed with 17.7% of traffic. This category took the top spot for revenue generation (20.6%) as consumers continue to use their mobile devices more for streaming music and watching videos. Arts & Entertainment sites and apps captured 18.2% of revenue.
Marketing for movies and entertainment events drove mobile ads during the holiday. While consumers may have been seeing more ads for products with gift potential in the weeks leading up to the holidays, entertainment advertisers took over as soon as Christmas week hit. Nearly 1 in 3 ads during the vacation period were for movie, music and entertainment events. Food & Drink followed with 17% of the ads being for products and services in this category.
Internationally, the Brazilian mobile ad market leapt up the global charts with the audience differentiated by device type and behavior. Well in advance of World Cup 2014, Brazil’s mobile audience has grown to a size on par with other significant markets, like Canada, Mexico and Australia. Now the 7th largest market, these consumers are predominantly on Android (47.6% vs. iOS 14.9%) and are heavy social network users, with 40% of traffic going to sites and apps in the Social category.
'2013 was a tremendous year for mobile advertising. At agencies, mobile campaigns moved from the back burner to the front and rich media ads replaced boring banners. Many publishers found their smartphone and tablet traffic eclipse their desktop internet traffic, and a some even made more money from mobile advertising when compared to desktop,” says Mahi de Silva, CEO, Opera Mediaworks. “With a 13% jump in the growth of new devices during Christmas just in the U.S., we expect even more growth in 2014. We anticipate the global media spend on mobile advertising will make up 20% of all digital advertising worldwide in 2014.”
For the complete Opera Mediaworks Q4 2013 report, visit the link below.