Network ad impressions within the AdMob network increased 16.9 percent in May versus April, according to the company's new mobile metrics report.

The San Mateo, CA-based mobile ad network recorded 3,034,661,966 impressions in May, compared with 2,595,092,049 impressions for the prior month. The company new serves more than 100 million ad impressions daily over the mobile Internet.

"We see broad growth in mobile Web usage," said Jason Spero, vice president of marketing at AdMob Inc. "We believe that this is driven by better devices, faster networks and simpler pricing models from the operators. But the biggest driver is compelling content.

"The number of high-quality mobile Web sites is growing dramatically," he said. "We see this in increased engagement and more regular usage. This is very exciting to watch."

AdMob last month served ads in 230 countries, with 89 of them having more than 1 million impressions.

Per the AdMob Mobile Metrics Report, 22.4 percent of the ad requests in the AdMob network worldwide were from smartphones.

U.S. requests in the AdMob network were up 1 percent May over April, which was slower than network growth, the company said.

Indonesian requests increased 46.3 percent May over April, outpacing network growth. AdMob last month added a large publisher with heavy Indonesian traffic, thus increasing the ad inventory and explaining the growth in requests. Indonesia is now AdMob's No. 3 market.

Britain leads Western Europe
AdMob each month features deeper data on specific regions it serves. It was Western Europe's turn this time.

The Western European countries where AdMob has a footprint includes Britain, France, Italy, Germany, Sweden, Ireland, Spain, Greece, the Netherlands and Portugal.

Per the AdMob data, Britain continues to lead the region, accounting for 196,323,883 requests and a 65.1 percent share. France followed with 27,736,481 requests and a 9.2 percent share. Italy was third, with 24,214,823 requests and an 8 percent share.

All told, Western Europe generated 301,703,466 requests within the AdMob ad network.

Within that region, Spain, Italy and Germany led broad traffic growth.

AdMob traffic data showed that Symbian and Nokia had market share dominance in the region.

In countries where it is sold through wireless carrier relationships, the Apple iPhone is among the top devices by traffic. Ireland is the exception since the iPhone was only recently introduced there through a carrier partnership that Apple struck.

Interestingly, the Apple itouch makes the list in most markets where the iPhone is in the top 20 devices.
"Where the iPhone has carrier deals, the penetration is very high," Mr. Spero said.

Devices engender requests
Smartphones dominate traffic in the Netherlands, according to AdMob. But there are many smartphone operating systems and mobile phones in that country. Hiptop is the No. 1 device there with 8.7 percent of the traffic.

"This was the first time we analyzed the Western Europe markets," Mr. Spero said. "We found it fascinating to see the smartphone operating system penetration by market. Symbian has a very strong share, but you can see the iPhone making inroads."

Western Europe is a highly fragmented market for device makers when compared with the other markets covered in the AdMob report.

In India, for example, the top five device makers account for more than 91 percent of all ad requests within the AdMob network.

By contrast, the top five device makers account for less than 70 percent of requests in Western European countries such as Germany, Spain, the Netherlands and Portugal.

In other data, the Motorola Razr V3, Nokia N70 and SonyEricsson K800i maintained the top device spots in the United States, India and Britain, which are among the key mobile penetration markets worldwide along with China.

New top devices such as the Samsung e250 in South Africa and the Nokia N70 in Indonesia were also noticed when compiling the metrics for the AdMob report.

The Palm Centro last month made its debut in the global top 20 devices list at No. 8. AdMob intends to monitor this mobile phone as it launches on more carriers worldwide.

AdMob is working with publishers to understand which markets they should go after and which content engages mobile consumers and brings them back.

The company is also working with publishers to understand which ads perform best on their sites. The AdMob platform does this dynamically.

Not surprisingly, Mr. Spero has seen a shift in the advertiser mentality to mobile Web advertising.

"We have seen a broadening of the mobile advertising base, yes," Mr. Spero said. "Advertisers are moving along the learning curve. We see this in the creative and in the sophistication of landing pages. We also see this in budgets."