On average, iPhone applications are accessed approximately 20 times over their lifecycle before consumers stop using the app, according to Greystripe.

Greystripe, a rich-media mobile advertising network, released their quarterly Consumer Insights Report, detailing statistics on the demographics and preferences of consumers in their mobile ad network while providing insight on the emerging iPhone applications business. Among their many finds, Greystripe is releasing new information on the average usage of iPhone applications and interactive advertising.

"The main takeaway for advertisers is that more engaging, Flash based mobile ads work," said Michael Chang, CEO of Greystripe, San Francisco. "Users are interacting with our rich-media ads at an incredibly high rate.

"Over 10 percent of users are opting to play our GS.Tailgate ads and they're playing for an average of 22 seconds," he said. "The other important point is that interactive ads are working -- users who played a recent GS.Tailgate were 293.3 percent more likely to click ?buy now.'

"Additionally, it's very important for advertisers to know what audience they're reaching when running mobile ads, and it's essential for ad networks such as Greystripe to continue to supply this data."

Greystripe's in-game advertising system currently serves ads into more than 900 game titles from 200 publishers supporting more than 1,400 handset models.

Some of the biggest advertisers on Greystripe iPhone games are Unilever's Axe, Burger King, Best Buy, Leap Frog, Walmart, Xbox, Yahoo, Dunlop, HP and Energizer.

Greystripe reaches millions of mobile game players by powering over 180 Catalog distribution partners, through its online portal GameJump.com, on the mobile Web at http://wap.gamejump.com and through the Apple App Store.

The biggest question about iPhone applications for brands and publishers centers around market size, revenue and usage. The most compelling findings bring attention to the actual shelf life of an iPhone application.

With various app stores providing over 35,000 apps available across multiple platforms, including the iPhone, Greystripe is reporting some new statistics.

Applications for Apple's iPhone have an engagement of 9.6 minutes per session of use.

Forty-two percent of iPhone app users have a household income of $78,000 or more, while 15 percent earn $165,000 or more and 44 percent have children.

The United States still dominates country-specific popularity of Greystripe-supported iPhone apps, with the U.S. accounting for 74.8 percent of traffic, followed by Britain, Canada, Australia, France, Singapore, Japan, Hong Kong, Mexico and Germany.

Greystripe recently began offering full-screen Flash advertisements on the iPhone.

As brands and agencies look for new ways to transfer their online campaigns onto the mobile platform, Greystripe has provided a way for brands to do this with their rich-media Flash ad formats.

One of these is the GS.Tailgate rich-media ad format, which is a game-like advertisement that consumers interact with before they access the actual game they downloaded. In many ways, this is an advergame for the iPhone.

Greystripe is releasing some new stats on their GS.Tailgate ads, as well.

GS.Tailgate advergames have an average of 22 seconds of interaction. More than 10 percent of users interact with GS.Tailgate ads.

In a recent GS.Tailgate ad, consumers touched the screen to interact with the ad a total of 5,291,070 times, or 1.92 times per impression.

Playing the GS.Tailgate ad increased the click-throughs to "buy now" buttons by 4.4 percent -- from 1.5 to 5.9 percent.

Greystripe's report shows that consumers are fans of the ads, too.

According to ComScore, 65 percent of Greystripe's users said they would interact more with an ad if it were an interactive ad, as opposed to a static ad; and users were 48 percent more likely to prefer an interactive ad if they had previously experienced a GS.Rich Media Flash ad.

Additionally, according to ComScore, Greystripe's Flash ads have seen an average increase in top-of-mind brand awareness of 10 percentage points versus the online average of 1 percentage point.

Greystripe's newest report also revealed that among their iPhone application consumers there is an almost even gender split, with 52 percent male, 48 percent female.

Forty-five percent of their users are between 18 and 34, while 91 percent of their users are involved in their household purchasing decisions.

"The shelf life of an app should actually not be that important to advertisers, since they'll be advertising across a large number of applications, and the advertising network is responsible for securing enough applications to provide the required number of impressions and reach," Mr. Chang said.

"This might, however, be something for advertisers to keep in mind when considering creating a branded game," he said.