AdMob Stats

AdMob just released its July stats. As always, it is very interesting to have a look at. Simply because with more than 100 billion ads served since launch and roughly 10bn in July 09 alone, they are representative of trends happening in the industry, particularly in the mobile advertising space. You can download their reports here at http://metrics.admob.com/

In addition, AdMob has always been clear about the representativness of the data: “AdMob does not claim that this information will be necessarily representative of the mobile Web as a whole or of any particular countrymarket. AdMob’s traffic is driven by publisher relationships and may be influenced accordingly. Because the data is pulled across ads served on more than 7,000 sites, we feel the data will be useful and may help inform business decision making”.

This month’s takeaway will raise many questions and comments in the industry:

* Android, iPhone and iPod touch users are all highly engaged with apps. Android and iPhone users
download 9-10 new apps per month, while iPod touch users download 18. Over half of Android and
iPhone users spend more than 30 minutes per day using apps.

* iPhone and iPod touch users are more likely to regularly purchase paid apps than Android users. 19%
of Android users download at least 1 paid app per month, compared to 50% of iPhone users and 40% of
iPod touch users.

* However, of those users who regularly purchase paid apps, downloading behavior is similar across
platforms. These users spend an average of $9 on about 5 paid apps per month.

AdMob is quite clear about the Methodology too:
All data in the feature section is based on survey results taken by users on their mobile device.
Respondents were sourced by responding to mobile ads throughout AdMob’s iPhone and Android networks.
There was no incentive offered to participate in the survey.
There were 1,117 total respondents: 390 Android, 380 iPhone and 347 iPod touch. The survey was run from
August 14th – August 21st.
The geographic representation of the respondents was designed to approximate the distribution of
Android and iPhone users in the AdMob network.

I have some concerns about the way these stats are extrapolated all over the worldwide blogosphere as:

- mid August is a very specific timing to ask consumers
- cautious extrapolation is required as the analysis has been conducted only during one week
- consumers who click on ads have probably a different behavior than others
- data is likely to be US centric given the distribution of ad requests within the AdMob network

My takeway would be:

- thanks to AdMob as the data always give food for thought
- be cautious when extrapolating and read the methodology carefully
- we don’t care about downloads, what your brand should care is real usage: how many of your customers use your app on a daily / weekly basis once they have downloaded it?
- Does AdMob really want to position itself as (exclusively) an iPhone ad network?: competitors in the off-portal space such as BuzzCity have a very different approach

2008 Predictions Reviewed

I reviewed my 2007 predictions here. So let’s do it again for my 2008 predictions.

Since I can’t buy the idea of 2008 as THE year of “…”, I highlighted what I thought would be the key trends rather than going for very specific claims:

1) “New entrants in the mobile space won’t impact the market significantly but highlight the evolution of the mobile ecosystem”

“Apple might even exceed its 10M 2008 target but even if it does, it won’t change the game in a volume industry. However, it might be another story in the high-end segment.” Thanks to lots of international and non-exclusive agreements and to the introduction of operator subsidies, the iPhone performed very well and is now a very serious competitor to RIM, HTC or Nokia N-Series…but at the end of the day there will be more than 1bn+ handsets sold worldwide. Will Apple replicate its approach on the PC market and remain a niche worldwide player and will they gain significant market share in the mobile space? I think it remains an open question. Also, it does not prevent Apple at all (on the contrary) to be highly profitable and successful with an integrated and focused strategy. I think it is a good summary of what’s happening in the value chain: a new entrant threatened to impose a new business model and is revamping the way content and applications are being merchandized / distributed on mobile phones.

Same story for Android and the G1. From a European perspective, I think there was too much noise around the so-called Google phone. At the end of the day, there will be x00.000 HTC devices sold but in the UK only. Many other devices with strong handset brands also coming into the game (Samsung, LG) but this is a long-term volume game vs the new Symbian Foundation: the final aim is to reduce costs for a bunch of developers, operators and handset players to offer the largest reach for Google services and its advertiser community.
Android is a mobile operating system for devices launched by the largest online advertising player. Isn’t that a good preview on the tectonic shifts happening in the mobile ecosytem?

2) “…Wimax, LTE, mobile broadcasting will continue to be overhyped but won’t impact the market anytime soon”

I am not denying the fact that Austrian and Swiss players tried to make the most of the UEFA Football Cup to launch DVB-H. See my post “Where will you watch the Euro?” but what about France (another postponment), Germany (switch to DVB-T), and real usage figure?

For Wimax/4G, I’ll refer to my previous comment: “Stop the hype with Mobile Wimax“.

3) “…Internet Trends will continue to be translated in the mobile space, usage will be unleashed among early adopters…”.

Regarding mobile social networking, I think there was lots of traction, as shown by Facebook annnouncement to have reached 15m mobile users worldwide. Same for widgets and VoIP with lots of innovative companies. Lots of trials for ad-funded mobile offerings as well. That being said, the results of a September Jupiter consumer survey were quite clear: on average 2% of mobile phone users visited a social networking site on their mobile phone in the last month while only 5 percent reported to access the mobile Internet on a weekly basis. Reason is quite simple, flat-rate all you can eat data plans are not ubiquitous and are only starting to be launched on prepay plans. So I think it is fair to say such “mobile 2.0″ services are still niche. Don’t get me wrong: I am neither saying there are not key for the youth audience nor that they do not have a strong potential. On the contrary, but hey Roma was not built in one day. I am looking forward participating to the mobile 2.0 conference in Paris to hear about the latest trends on this topic.

4) “…Mobile Advertising will enter a disillusionment phase before the end of 2008…”. Yes and no! I think an increasing number of advertisers are embracing the mobile channel. But most of them are still testing the waters and do not spend very significant budgets really integrating mobile in the media-mix. More detailed analysis on this post here. In the UK, the availability of the O2 active inventory had a direct consequence on CPM prices. Mobile ad rates begin to fall as reported recently in AdAge. On a nascent media, advertisers do not care about higher CTRs (the usual pitch of mobile ad vendors : mobile >>> online click-through-rates), they care about better ROIs, still difficult to measure. I think this prediction may have been a bit early but I have no doubt the market will enter a more realistic phase in 2009, particularly in the times of the economic downturn.

5) “…Mobile “Utilities” will start emerging…. That was an easy one. I think that’s particulary true for location-based services, that are now being promoted as a way to acquire customers. But I was too optimistic on mobile transactions (banking, ticketing, payment).

That’s my personal take anyway. From a Jupiter forecasting perspective (a collective and professional approach), we reviewed downwards a couple of revenues streams (particularly Ring-Back Tones and video/TV) and upwards SMS volumes (that keep increasing) but hadn’t obviously integrated the impact of the crisis. This exercise will be done when revising the forecast with Forrester (my new employer) analysts and dedicated forecasting team.

From now onwards, you’ll be able to follow my posts on the brand new Forrester Blog for Consumer Product Strategy Professionals. The posts here will have a different angle and be more personal and more diversified (not necessarily always mobile-related).

Sorry, that was too long a post. Anyway, that’s wrap for 2008. If you disagree or I you have a different perspective, feel free to add a comment. I’ll post my 2009 predictions early January to get the ball rolling.

It’s now time for me to hibernate until January 5th.

I wish you all a nice festive season.