ReadWriteWeb

For the first time ever, Android has tied with Apple's iOS platform in terms of mobile ad impressions on Millennial Media's mobile advertising network, according to its latest monthly report. Android's mobile operating system has seen rapid gains over the course of 2010, and has increased its ad requests by 2182% since January, growing at a rate of 65% month-over-month.

Android now has a 37% impression share, as does Apple's iOS, says Millennial Media.

According to a study of over 16,000 mobile YouTube users conducted by Google, 75% of respondents said that mobile is their primary way of accessing YouTube. At first glance, that figure may come as no surprise - after all, how shocking is at that a survey of mobile users finds that they watch a lot of YouTube Mobile? However, it's actually a rather telling number.

For some of us, watching YouTube on a mobile device is an additional way to watch video, not the primary way. But as it turns out, for a large majority of mobile video users, it's completely the opposite.

Who will control mobile advertising - Apple, Google an assortment of small time players, each with their own slivers of the market? How should ads be targeted? What new advertising trends are we seeing now?

These topics are more were discussed this afternoon at the Open Mobile Summit in San Francisco by top executives from mobile ad firms and Jason Spero, Director of Google Mobile.

Blackberry users in the U.S. barely click on mobile ads, while those who own a Symbian-powered phone click on more ads than anybody else. According to the latest data from mobile advertising optimization platform Smaato, the most interesting development with regards to mobile ads in the U.S. over the last month is the fact that click-through rates for users of Apple's iOS devices have increased dramatically.

One of the problems advertisers face when looking to launch a campaign on mobile devices is choosing which platforms to go after. Many have flocked to the iPhone/iPad/iPod Touch ecosystem because of the sheer number of devices and the uniformity of hardware across the platform. Android devices, on the other hand, are much more fragmented, with varying screen resolutions and hardware capabilities, so launching ads on the devices is bit trickier. Mobile advertising platform Medialets has a solution to this problem as today it has announced that its Universal Android SDK (software development kit) is leaving beta.

The Android platform has grown exponentially since mid-2009, but December's stats show a particular factor that might help catapult the platform to greater heights of user adoption.

In figures just released from mobile advertising company AdMob, the Droid singlehandedly boosted calls to their network by nearly 300 million requests while stats for HTC Magic devices remained static and those for HTC's Dream model actually decreased. In terms of consumer use of the network and acceleration of device popularity, it seems we have a winner.

There's no question that mobile web use is on the rise. Recent reports tell us that cellular networks worldwide are seeing major increases in growth. In fact, there are even concerns that the current infrastructure won't be able to keep up with the new demands. According to one research firm, 3G traffic in developed markets will increase by 20% by the end of 2014 but some operators will face HSPA capacity shortfalls as soon as mid-2010, if not earlier. Forrester Research also recently predicted that more than a third of Europeans will be accessing the mobile internet by 2014.

With these levels of growth, we're also seeing related mobile services getting a boost. App stores, both phone-based and carrier-based, are popping up left and right, mobile video usage is booming, and mobile ad markets are seeing dramatic growth, too. However, there's one area that hasn't yet benefitted from the mobile revolution: mobile e-commerce.

Today, mobile ad network AdMob announced social, search, and dynamic rich media ad units for the iPhone.

"Mobile advertising is rapidly maturing, and we believe the iPhone is leading the industry forward. Advertisers are excited to connect with consumers in new ways on the iPhone through social and rich media ad units that deliver increased impact and engagement," said AdMob VP/GM, Jason Spero. The new ads build on the high-performing iPhone ad units the
company launched last year and will begin running July 1st.