Millennial Media: Apple OS Grows By 36 Percent In June, Android Up By 23 Percent

Mobile ad network Millennial Media, which claims that its network reaches 82 percent of 72 million mobile web users in the U.S., is reporting that globally, Apple OS requests are up by 36 percent in June, after dropping 33 percent in May.
Android requests continued to rise, and grew another 23 percent month over month. Android is now up a whopping 439% since January. iPad requests are also increasing at a fast rate, growing 206 percent in June, after rising 160 percent in May. RIM ad requests increased percent month-over-month, posting a 41 percent increase in requests since January.
In terms of ad impressions, Apple’s OS remained the leading Smartphone OS on Millennial’s network in June with a 56 percent share of impressions and an 8% growth month-over-month. RIM was the second largest Smartphone OS for the eleventh consecutive month, representing a 17 percent share of impressions for June, dropping by 2 percent from last month. Android’s OS remained the third largest operating system in for the fourth consecutive month, representing 11 percent of impressions, dropping by 4 percent from May.
When splitting ad impressions by device manufacturer, Apple had the largest share increase of 4 percent with approximately 30 percent share of impressions in June. Motorola moved into the number four position, passing HTC and LG, with the mobile company’s devices representing an 8 percent share of impressions for the month. This growth is largely driven by the Droid device, says Millennial.

Android devices represented six of June’s Top 20 Mobile Phones. The Motorola Droid moved into the top five and the HTC Droid Incredible also entered into the Top 20 at number 13. Of the top 20 mobile phones on Millennial’s network, 13 were smartphones, which represented 43 percent impression share in June. Not to be left out, RIM took the number two spot on the device list with the Curve; RIM devices now account for four of the Top 20 Mobile Phones in June


As we wrote last month, Millennial has added new measurement data focusing on mobile developer channels and trends. Gaming apps once again took the number one spot for and accounted for 41 percent of apps on the network in June. Music apps, as well as Food and Dining apps, experienced significant increases in June. Sports-focused apps took the third position, accounting for 7 percent of apps on the network, rising from the number six spot in May. This could reflect increased use and downloads of sports related apps because of the World Cup games, Stanley Cup Finals and and NBA finals.
In terms of platform, 89 percent of developers were creating apps for a single platform, while 11 percent of developers are developing for multiple platforms. Of the developers who focused on a single platform, 31 percent were focused on Android which is a 2 percent increase month-over-month
While Android continues to grow at a steady rate, it looks like the iPhone OS is back on a growth pattern after a few months of declines in ad requests and impressions. This could be because of increased iPad use as well as the rollout of the iPhone 4 in mid to late June.
As one of the largest mobile ad networks that has not been acquired by a tech giant, Millennial has been seeing impressive growth and reach. The Baltimore-based company has rolled out an iPad SDK, and acquired mobile metrics and analytics firm TapMetrics earlier this year. The company is also well funded; Millennial just raised $16 million in Series C funding last November.
The big question that still remains is the long-term effect of Apple’s iAd platform on the space. iAds are performing well for advertisers and publishers, and should be a veritable competitor to other mobile advertising platforms.
And there is still the question of how Apple’s new iAd policies on outside networks advertising will play out. While the policy initially was thought to have excluded Google’s AdMob from serving ads on the iPhone, we learned this week that AdMob ads are still being served the iPhone. As we’ve written in the past, Millennial’s future may be in question if the network is looking to be acquired by a major tech giant, like Microsoft. That is if Apple starts enforcing their rules. But perhaps the FTC’s rumored informal investigation into Apple’s iAd policies has changed the game for Apple. And this could no doubt mean good things for Millennial’s future.