AdMob: Motorola Jumps In Rankings Thanks To Android

Motorola (NYSE: MOT) has made some significant headway in the smartphone market, by betting heavily on the Google (NSDQ: GOOG) Android platform, according to the latest report by AdMob, which analyzes the most popular types of handsets in its ad network.

AdMob looks at the traffic on its ad network to determine what are the most popular handsets by region. AdMob’s network is only a sampling of the overall market, and it’s hard to say how its been affected since the announcement that Google would purchase the company for $750 million. But putting that aside, its report sheds some light on Motorola, which up until recently had an insignificant presence in the smartphone space. In North America, AdMob found that Motorola had the second most popular handset after the iPhone with the Droid receiving 11.3 percent of ad requests in December. What’s more, the Motorola CLIQ was the sixth most popular handset with 3.4 percent of the ad requests.

Still,the iPhone continues to dominate in North America, with the popular Apple (NSDQ: AAPL) device requesting nearly half, or about 48.5 percent of ad requests. AdMob said that most of those requests are generated inside applications, and not in the browser.

Motorola’s successes also signal the strength of the Android operating system. In North America, Android’s share grew throughout the year reaching 27 percent in the fourth quarter, which was by far the highest penetration in any region. Besides Motorola, other well-performing handsets running Android included the HTC Dream, Hero, Magic and Droid Eris and the Samsung Moment. The BlackBerry 8300 and Palm (NSDQ: PALM) Pre also made the top 10 list in North America.

Worldwide Android’s growth was less dramatic, but still managed to jump from 1 percent In the fourth quarter 2008 to 16 percent in the fourth quarter 2009. While Apple and HTC continued to grow and RIM (NSDQ: RIMM) stayed flat, Nokia (NYSE: NOK) lost ground in 2009. Nokia’s share of requests in the AdMob network declined to 18 percent in the fourth quarter, dropping dramatically from 33 percent in the year-ago period. However, AdMob notes that differences exist between regions as Nokia is still the largest device manufacturer by share of requests in Africa, Asia and Eastern Europe. AdMob’s network includes advertising in iPhone, Android and Palm OS applications, as well as mobile web sites.

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