Asia-Pacific advertisers seeking to hawk their wares on the mobile platform need not look solely to Apple’s iPhone as the device of choice.
According to a report from mobile ad network InMobi, Apple’s hot-selling device may be leading the Asia Pacific market with an 8.2% share of ad impressions, but the remaining 9 device models on the region’s list of top 10 handsets are products of Finnish manufacturer Nokia.
Nokia may be losing market share in many developed markets, but its products remain popular in emerging markets due to their relative affordability.
The report, which studied mobile advertising trends in the region between July 2010 and October 2010, stated that Nokia devices held a combined 57% share of ad impressions in region.
Nokia's operating systems, including Symbian, held a 61.2% share of ad impressions in July; however, this figure slipped to 41.3% in 90 days.
Nokia’s significant slide in the span of 3 months could be attributed to the growth of smartphones in the Asia Pacific, said James Lamberti, VP of global research and marketing at InMobi.
“The rapid growth of media consumption via smartphones signifies an important shift in the Asian mobile advertising community. While consumers are already using their mobile devices as the primary screen in these emerging markets, the opportunity for marketers as adoption of smartphone technology increases will transform the global media landscape.”
The research found Android and the iPhone OS combined gained a 9.3 point share in 90 days, at the expense of Nokia. The overall Asian mobile ads market grew by just under 1 billion ad impressions in 90 days (8.7%), out of which 719 million were attributed to smartphones.
InMobi stated it expected the iPhone OS to ‘continue taking impression share’ from a region where Nokia linked operating systems have historically held pole position.