The in-app and mobile web ad markets have experienced rapid growth in recent years. This has been driven by the strong uptake of smartphone’s within Australia and the subsequent distribution of content by publishers and advertisers across the medium.
More specifically as of December, 2012 the Apple’s app store has 775,000 active apps, including 300,000 for the iPad with over 40 billion downloads to date. The Android app market (Google Play) on the other hand launched in 2008 hosts over 700,000 apps with more than 25 billion downloads. Both Apple’s apps store and Google Play are on track to have 1 million apps in mid-2013. Along with this countless websites have been optimised to take advantage of the strengths of the smartphone.
This is the first edition of the “Prevailing Mobile and Tablet Advertising Formats” which highlights some of the trends in display ad sizes offered by publishers in the Australian market. Although audio and video content and ads have a very natural home on smartphones and tablets, display ads are the most prevalent and the most varied ad formats on these devices today, and therefore tracking their evolution has been the IAB’s first priority. Video and audio ads will be reviewed and included in future releases.