Motorola’s Droid continues to propel the Android mobile operating system forward in the stat arena, with the latest data crediting the handset with nearly a quarter of all Android traffic.
AdMob, a mobile ad firm that serves display and text ads on about 15,000 mobile Web sites and applications, releases monthly trend reports based on the traffic on its network. AdMob is also in the process of being acquired by Google (NASDAQ: GOOG) for $750 million, underscoring the future potential of mobile ads.
While Apple’s (NASDAQ: AAPL) iPhone typically dominates the AdMob network traffic, the October report reveals some gains by Android, most notably ones made by Motorola, and Research In Motion’s BlackBerry devices.
With the Google-backed Android OS starting to come of age with several major upgrades and signature smartphone releases, worldwide requests from Android devices increased 5.8 times since April 2009 in the AdMob network.
“The HTC Dream (G1) has continued to experience strong growth over the past six months and the launch of new devices is driving significant incremental growth in Android traffic,” AdMob said in its report. “The Motorola Droid already represented 24 percent of all Android requests in AdMob’s network two weeks after it launched.”
Here in the U.S., Android enjoyed a 20 percent share of smartphone traffic, up from 7 percent six months before, and the HTC myTouch 3G and HTC Dream were both top 10 devices. In the UK, the HTC Dream, HTC Magic, and HTC Hero are all top 10 devices in the AdMob network.
The Motorola Cliq has also seen fast pickup since its launch at T-Mobile in the U.S., generating 6 percent of Android traffic as of Nov. 18. That’s good news for Motorola, which also made the Droid, bringing the mobile vendor’s total share of the Android market to 30 percent.
Meanwhile, the BlackBerry Tour and the newest Curves, the 8900 and 8520 editions, are also posting healthy gains, with the older 8300 Curve series holding 44 percent share over the past six months, according to AdMob.
The report shows that RIM’s BlackBerry are holding their own, albeit without much of the fanfare that accompanies iPhone and Android releases. “In the U.S., the RIM 8300 Curve and 8100 Pearl series devices have consistently remained in the Top 20 devices over the last two years. In the UK, the 9000 Bold and 8900 Curve have seen strong growth and are now the number 10 and 11 devices, respectively,” according to the report.
