iOS is the king of mobile advertising, Android worse than BlackBerry

If you want your mobile ads to pack real punch then they’d better be on iOS. And while Android might be installed on more smartphones than any other OS, you’re better off going with BlackBerry.

That’s the skinny from the latest State of Mobile Advertising report by Norwegian software company Opera.

According to The Next Web, the company has some serious mobile credentials. Aside from the fact that its mobile browser is one of the most popular in the world, its mobile ads platform serves 10 000 mobile sites and apps and delivers over 40-billion ad impressions a month.

The report shows just how dominant the Apple platform is. The Cupertino-based giant offers a return of $1.64 eCPM (effective cost per thousand impressions). That’s somewhat higher than the US$1.31 global average and nearly double Android’s average of US$0.88.

It’s also significantly better than RIM’s US$1.06 and Symbian’s US$0.37. Yup, that’s right, BlackBerry is a better proposition when it comes to mobile ads than Android. Despite being the world’s most popular mobile OS, Android also only delivers a quarter of traffic to Opera’s mobile ad network. Against the 46% that Apple delivers, that isn’t all that impressive.

The most effective device meanwhile is the iPad with a US$4.42 eCPM — ahead of the iPhone ($1.48) and iPod Touch ($0.82).

Given the dominance of iDevices, it shouldn’t be all that surprising that apps dominate adspend on the network. As The Next Web explains, that’s largely down to sheer volume of traffic: eight out of 10 people who visited the network did so via an app.

Opera reckons it’s on track to deliver US$400-million to its customers in 2012, way more than US$240-million it made in 2011.