Mobile advertisement impression volume has grown 260% from July 2013 in India, according to the State of Mobile Advertising report released by Opera Mediaworks. The report is based on aggregated information obtained from the Opera Mobile Ad Platform and Opera Mobile Ad Exchange servers, and hence not a census of the overall mobile advertising market, but can be indicative.
The report says that this growth has been fueled by a country-wide shift from feature phones to smart devices, with the Android platform leading the way.
The report also claims that currently Android holds a 41.7% market share in India, while Symbian and iOS have 2.7% and 0.4% market shares respectively.
Ad impressions vs. Revenue generated
Android also served the most number of ad impressions and generated maximum revenue among the various mobile platforms, though in terms of number of unique devices present in India Android was behind feature phones. Android accounted for over 80% of total ad impressions and generated 60% of total revenues. Though iOS accounted for just 0.5% of total ad impressions, it generated 2% of total revenues.
Banner ads vs Rich-media creative
Banner ads and other simpler forms of ads dominate the Indian market, with a 96.8% share, while rich-media creative account for a paltry 3.2% mobile ads. However, rich-media accounts for over 26% of the total revenue, while banner ads account for the remaining 74%.
Content preference
Indian Android users prefer Arts and Entertainment content over News and Information, which opposite of what audiences prefer globally. Arts and Entertainment & News and Information publishers managed by Opera Mediaworks account for over 30% of the total ad revenue globally, while in India it accounts for just 4%.
Type of ads: Most mobile ads are for selling games (25.5%) and mobile devices (22.7%). These are closely followed by classifieds, which account for 1 in 5 ad impressions.
Frequency of use: 49.5% of unique users access mobile web 1-2 days per week and are classified as ‘occasional’ users. 28.9% are ‘regular’ users and access mobile web 3-5 days a week. The remaining 21.6 % are ‘high-frequency’ users accessing mobile web up to 7 days a week, and this group is also served over 60% of all mobile ad impressions.
Mobile audience in India: Indian mobile audiences are predominantly male, accounting for 82% of total users. The 18-24 age group accounts for over 60% of all users.
Top mobile sites: In both the global and Indian markets social media sites and apps. However, in case of mobile app stores with a significant mobile games catalogue India is well ahead of the global market. Also, gaming and education-focused sites figure higher up the order in India, in comparison to global markets. On the other hand interest in music and other media streaming sites in well below the global average. This is understandable because, firstly a number of these sites are not yet available in India and secondly the mobile internet speeds are also not on par with global standards.
Opera Mediaworks in the advertising arm of Norwegian browser company Opera. It provides advertising, content distribution and monetization services to the mobile marketplaces. It focuses on four service areas namely Ad-mediation, ad-exchange and real-time bidding (RTB) through its AdMarvel and Opera Mediaworks Ad Exchange; Mobile Ad agency and networks through Mobile Theory and 4th Screen Advertising, Opera Mobile Store and Opera Payment Exchange.
