iOS reclaims lead, Europe takes off, and 2013 sees higher mobile click-throughs and conversions

Opera Mediaworks shares Q1 insights in State of Mobile Advertising report

Opera Mediaworks today released its first State of Mobile Advertising report of the year, with key mobile advertising data and trends from Q1 2013. The data originates from the company’s extensive mobile advertising platform, which consists of AdMarvel, Mobile Theory, 4th Screen Advertising and Opera Mediaworks Performance. The platform serves 50+ billion ad impressions per month via 12,000 mobile sites and apps, delivering a total of $400M in revenue to mobile publishers in 2012.

Highlights from the report:

  • iOS regains lead over Android for impression volume and maintains top position for monetization. Mobile ad campaigns running on Apple devices consistently achieve the highest average eCPMs and account for nearly half (49.2%) of all revenue delivered to mobile publishers. The iPhone also edged out Android phones this quarter in impression volume, regaining the No.1 position it lost temporarily at the end of 2012.
  • Music, Video and Media dominates both volume and revenue. Mobile consumption of music, video and media continues to climb, reaching just over 29% of all ad requests, up from 21.4% the previous quarter. This quarter, revenue caught up to volume, as we saw the category earning the largest sum of revenue (17.7%) of any other category. Business and Finance sites, however, are still the most valuable, as they produce the highest revenue per impression.
  • Europe’s mobile ad market is taking off. While mobile ad traffic is accelerating across all geographies, some of the fastest growth we are seeing is from the top 5 European countries (the United Kingdom, Italy, Germany, France and Spain). Some 21.5% of ad impressions on the Opera Mediaworks platform are now served in Europe, up from 15% at the end of 2012. However, the United States still generates the most revenue (75.4%) on the platform, even with a diminished impression volume (50.7% vs. 60% last quarter).
  • “Mobile advertising, which is expected to exceed 10% of all digital advertising this year, will become a vital facet of every major ad campaign in the upcoming year,” says Mahi de Silva, CEO, Opera Mediaworks. “The size of the audience combined with rich media and engagement rates shows we will continue to see a shift of ad dollars away from traditional media and desktop digital media to tablets and smartphones. Overall, Q1 2013 was another record quarter for mobile advertising across the world — with a particularly strong March.”

The report also explores some new findings from the Opera Mediaworks team around recent performance-focused campaigns. By digging deeper into contextual information (i.e., device and connection type) and using intelligent prioritization to make smarter decisions about campaign placement, advertisers are showing significant improvements to both click-through rates and conversions.

To read the full report, go to: http://www.opera.com/sma/.

About Opera Mediaworks

Opera Mediaworks is the world’s leading mobile advertising platform, helping to power the global mobile economy. We improve efficiency, through technology, innovation, transparency and trust, to create an open and vibrant marketplace for publishers and advertisers across the globe. Opera Mediaworks includes AdMarvel, an ad-serving and mediation platform; Mobile Theory, a premium mobile ad network in the USA; 4th Screen Advertising Ltd., a premium ad network in the United Kingdom; and Opera Mediaworks Performance, a results-driven mobile ad network. Also included are impressions served within Opera’s mobile properties, including Smart Page for Opera Mini and the Opera Mobile Store. Opera Mediaworks is part of the Opera Group.