Opera says iPad takes 91% of tablet ads, iPhone ad share leads all Android phones

Opera Mediaworks has released its latest "State of the Mobile Web" report, noting that Apple's iOS platform continues to generate the most revenue, with iPhone maintaining a slight lead over all Android phones combined and the iPad capturing over 92 percent of tablet ad revenue.

The report, articulated by Jon Russell of The Next Web, looks at Opera's data from 13,000 sites and apps serving over 60 billion ad impressions per month to 400 million users.

Opera noted that "iPhone and Android are neck and neck in the smartphone race for impressions, with iPhone still clear revenue winner. The iPhone generates 36.4% of revenue compared to Android’s 27.8%."

The firm also noted that "overall iOS is the clear leader with 43.8% of impressions served on Apple devices," despite the fact that Opera's client list includes Samsung, one of the biggest ad spenders in the industry.

"Among tablets, Apple captures the lion’s share (91.2%) with Samsung following at 6.1%," Opera noted. Acer accounted for 1.15 percent, and all other tablets fit into the remaining 1.54 percent.

America accounts for 75% of mobile ad revenue

While just under half of all ad requests come from the U.S., Opera noted that "The United States is still the biggest market in terms of revenue, with nearly 3 out of every 4 dollars in transactions taking place in the U.S. market."

Rich Media Ads like iAd work up to 400% better

Opera also studied the performance of "rich media ads" compared to conventional banner ads, noting that in a study of 378 mobile ad campaigns, each with over a million impressions, "rich media campaigns performed far better than standard banner ads, sometimes as much as 400%."

The firm explained, "rich media ads served within mobile applications were more compelling than those served on the mobile web. Users clicked on in-app ads 1.53% of the time, vs. 1.12% for mobile web ads. Standard banner ads, by comparison, average a 0.39% click-through rate when served in-app and 0.32% when displayed on a mobile website."

The figures are more good news for Apple's iAd initiative, which the company unveiled in April 2010 as a way for third party app developers to monetize their apps.

Apple described iAd at the time as being "a new form of mobile advertising designed by Apple to deliver the interaction and emotion currently lacking in the mobile space."

"If you look at advertisements on a phone, it's not like on a desktop," Steve Jobs said at the time. "On a desktop, it's about search. On mobile, search hasn't happened. People aren't searching on their phones. People are spending their time in apps."

He added, "developers [who create free apps] need to find a way to start making their money. A lot of developers turn to advertising - and we think these current advertisements really suck."

In his presentation of the new iAd network, Jobs noted that when you click on existing iPhone mobile ads, it yanks you out of the application you're running and launches a web ad, noting that this prevented people from clicking on ads.

At the time, the media was skeptical of Jobs' comments (IDC analyst Karsten Weide predicted iAd would "fade into the background" at the end of 2011).

However, in April, MoPub noted that nearly 80 percent of advertisers' spending was going into rich media ads.

Google just reported results that indicated higher revenues but lower performance, largely due to its inability to translate its paid search placement business model from the desktop to mobile, just as Jobs had outlined three years earlier, and further hampered by another $342 million loss by Motorola.

Google is now working to replicate Apple's iAd model with a new HTML5 ad experience program of its own called Google Web Designer.

At the same time, Apple is now expanding iAd into audio and video segments (above) to sponsor its upcoming iTunes Radio feature for iOS 7 and new versions of iTunes and Apple TV.