African mobile ad impressions sees growth in 2011 - InMobi

JOHANNESBURG: Independent mobile advertising network InMobi, on tuesday, 17 May 2011, released its latest Africa Regional Insights. These provide a snapshot of mobile advertising trends on the continent between December 2010 and March 2011. Data from the report shows that InMobi now serves over 3.6 billion impressions a month in Africa and that these mobile ad impressions have grown consistently by 3% during the period.

Africa specific data includes:

36% growth in mobile impressions in Nigeria in the period
16% growth in mobile impressions in Kenya the period
Nokia OS holds 36.9% impression share, followed by Symbian OS at 25.9% and RIM OS at 2.9%

The data also indicates that while 8 out of 10 mobile adverts in Africa are delivered on either a Nokia or Samsung device, when it comes to smart phone platforms in Africa, RIM is ahead; although RIM/iPhone OS/Android collectively only represent 4.1% of the total Africa ecosystem. In two months, RIM has grown 2,5% share points while Nokia, which owns the majority market share (in total number of handsets, rather than just smartphones), has remained static.

"RIM Blackberry's growth during the period is proof that the lowering cost of data plans and devices will lead to smart phone adoption in Africa," comments Isis Nyong'o, VP and MD, InMobi Africa. "It will be critical to track both RIM and Android market penetration as a key to growth in mobile advertising ecosystem."

The report also showed that South Africa, Nigeria and Egypt represent the largest mobile markets in Africa. South Africa maintains position as the largest of these with in excess of 850 million impressions a month.

James Lamberti, VP of global research and marketing at InMobi says, "Africans continue to increase their mobile media consumption with both advanced phone and smartphone uptake growing at a consistent pace in the last quarter. However, advanced phones still dominate with 81% market share, so smartphones have yet to gain significant traction."

Download the full report.