Velti Report: iPhone 5 Will Take A Big Bite Of Mobile Ad Share

Mobile marketer Velti just released its August report on the mobile ad market, but instead of focusing on the past month, it’s looking ahead to the growth of the iPhone 5.

The report points out that the iPhone 4S had a rapid rise to the top, becoming the top device in mobile ad impressions within a few months — it was already claiming 10 percent of impressions four months after its release. Velti predicts that the iPhone 5 will be adopted even more quickly than the 4S, driving more than 25 percent of all iPhone ad impressions within six months, and becoming one of the top five devices in Velti’s Mobclix ad exchange.

(Is that just another way of saying that the iPhone 5 will sell really, really well — a prediction that already seems to be coming true? Not quite. Velti is looking at how relevant the device will be to mobile advertisers. Obviously, sales play a role, but so do other factors, such as usage.)

In addition to looking at the iPhone 5, the Velti report has its usual breakdown of market share by platform, saying that Android grew from 42 percent to 43 percent of total impressions. That’s not all that dramatic, but it does mark a reversal from the first six months of the year when iOS was consistently taking market share from Android. The report also looks at eCPMs (the amount paid per 1,000 impressions). Apparently ads in education apps, with an average eCPM of 97 cents, are now the most lucrative, beating out weather apps. Overall, eCPMs rose 6 percent from July.

You can read the full report here. The data comes from the Mobclix ad exchange and serves ads to more than 33,500 apps.