InMobi: Smartphone Ad Impressions Up 488% In 2011, Tablets Up 771%

Independent mobile ad network InMobi has released its Mobile Market 2011 Review report today, finding significant growth in mobile advertising over the past year, with global smartphone impressions up by 488%. The company also saw 251% growth in mobile impressions on its network, which includes tablet devices and smartphones combined.

Tablet impressions alone grew by an incredible 771% year-over-year, up to 1.2 billion. And the market is growing still, led by, of course, Apple’s iPad.

Of the regions surveyed, North America was the fastest growing, with 366% overall growth in mobile impressions and a 625% increase in smartphones.

On InMobi’s network, the race between two top mobile platforms, iOS and Android, was very close throughout the year. In Q4 2011, Android was the number one operating system on the network, with 21% share of impressions. Apple, meanwhile, had a 17% share. In North America, however, Apple’s share increased by 23.4% to 33.1%, thanks to the release of the iPad 2 and iPhone 4S in 2011. Android increased by 3.3% to 32.5% in this region.

Globally, Android came out on top, above Nokia and Symbian, and InMobi expects it will win in 2012 as well.

Keep in mind that data about InMobi’s view of the mobile ecosystem is relative to the devices on its advertising network. The company says the data was sourced from over 200 billion impressions in Q4 2011 and was compared with Q4 2010. There were over 140 countries represented with over 10 million impressions in December, to give you an idea of the network’s size. Regions reported on include Africa, Asia Pacific, Europe,  the Middle East, North America and South America.

Global data: