Explosive Growth in Mobile Advertising

The InMobi Mobile Market 2011 Review shows 251% growth in mobile impressions globally on the InMobi network and global smartphone impressions increased 488%*.  In comparison, North America, InMobi's fastest growing region was ahead of the global trend, with 366% overall growth in mobile impressions and a staggering 625% increase in smartphones.

Connected Devices

Smartphone impressions surged in 2011 with the huge growth of in-app ads.   This was combined with broad consumer and business adoption of the tablet platform, with tablet impressions increasing 771% year-on-year, to 11.2 billion.  The tablet market is expected to grow rapidly through 2012 with new devices and increased investment.

The InMobi report signals that connected devices, such as smartphones, tablets, smart TVs, eReaders and gaming systems are the future of media in the post-PC era, highlighting that consumer user experience demands continue to drive innovation within the industry.

James Lamberti, VP Global Research & Marketing, InMobi, comments: "Mobile technologies have empowered the development of the media and advertising market and pushed consumer acceptance of media consumption through emerging channels.  Advertisers are now on board with this trend and we expect to see strong innovation in this space as consumers spend more time on mobile devices and less on PCs." 

Operating Systems

One of the most discussed mobile battles in the last year was clearly the race for OS dominance between Android and iOS, and 2011 closed with Android taking the lead.  In Q4 2011, Android was the number one OS on the InMobi network, with 21% share of impressions; Apple had 17% impression share.  In North America, however, Apple's impression share increased 23.4% in 2011, spurred by the release of the iPad 2 and iPhone 4S.  Globally, the Google platform topped Nokia and Symbian, and Android is expected to win in 2012 as well.

Lamberti says: "We saw tremendous expansion in the mobile advertising industry in 2011, with innovation and new players driving investment and interest into the market.  We anticipate 2012 to be an exciting year, with new offerings across the board."

You can view the InMobi Mobile Market 2011 Review infographic at www.inmobi.com/research.  

*About the report

Data in this report are sourced from InMobi's global mobile advertising network, which served over 200 billion impressions in Q4 2011. Year over year analysis compared Q4 2011 to Q4 2010. With 140 countries receiving over 10 million impressions in December, we are able to claim one of the broadest and most representative networks in the world. Regions represented include Africa, Asia Pacific, Europe, Middle East, North America, and South America.

About InMobi

InMobi is the world's largest independent mobile advertising network. With offices on five continents InMobi provides advertisers, publishers and developers with a uniquely global solution for advertising. The network is growing and now delivers the unprecedented ability to reach 485 Million consumers, in over 165 countries, through more than 77.6 Billion mobile ad impressions monthly. The recent acquisition of Sprout, a leading HTML5 authoring platform for mobile rich media, helps expand InMobi's offering to creative agencies and brands. InMobi was recently named "The Best Mobile Ad Network" at the 2011 MOBI Awards and was selected as a 2011 AlwaysOn Top 100 Mobile Company in Silicon Valley.

InMobi is venture-backed by investors including: SoftBank, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers and Sherpalo Ventures. The company has offices in Bangalore, Johannesburg, London, Nairobi, New York, Paris, San Francisco, Seoul, Singapore and Tokyo.

To learn more, please visit www.inmobi.com/research, follow us on Twitter @InMobi, or read our blog at www.inmobi.com/inmobiblog/.