India Shows Record Growth In Mobile Advertising

BANGALORE: The Asia-Pacific is now the fastest-growing region in mobile advertising, with 70 percent growth in ad impressions year-over-year -- similar to its upward trajectory within the global economy. This was among the conclusions from the special edition of the State of Mobile Advertising report, released by Opera Mediaworks.

India is the single-most powerful driver of the Asia-Pacific market, with mobile-ad impression volume growing 260 percent since July 2013. This is primarily due to the rapid, country-wide shift from feature phones to smart devices, which is dominated almost entirely by the Android platform (41.7 percent share vs. a paltry 0.4 percent for iOS).

Opera Mediaworks’ first India-focused report provides data on device adoption, ad types and mobile consumption patterns in the sub-continent, among other things.

Other market-share findings:

Social sites and apps are most popular in usage, consistent with the global trend. However, mobile app stores, gaming and education sites, and apps closely follow, which is particular to Indiausers.

Advertisements served are mostly for games and mobile devices, together representing nearly half (48.1 percent) of all impressions. Classified ads, however, comprise a significant portion, with 1 in 5 impressions dedicated to the direct sale of personal transportation like cars, trucks, motorcycles and bicycles.

Most ads are simple banners, but more sophisticated rich media is emerging as a creative medium. Even at only 3.2 percent of impressions, rich media drives 26.6 percent of revenue.

With the goal of helping advertisers understand the makeup of the mobile audience in India -- and how to better reach them -- Opera Mediaworks also published findings about the user base. The company observed that:

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