Millennial Media has released its first S.M.A.R.T report of the new year, following its 2009 “year in review” posted last month.  Along with the usual data and insight from Millennial’s ever-growing network, this month’s report includes a special section comparing the performance of advertising on mobile devices using norms developed in online ad testing- a unique study conducted by InsightExpress.

First, a little context- the mobile Web, as measured by Nielsen, came in at a total audience of 67,004,000.  Of which, Millennial reached roughly 54,371,000 via its network, representing a network audience reach of 81% of total U.S mobile Internet users.  “Traffic to Site” remained the primary destination advertisers directed traffic to, once again, representing 45 percent of the total campaign destination mix, while custom landing pages and app downloads came in second and third at 34 percent and 16 percent respectively.

With regards to the study conducted by InsightExpress on behalf of Millennial Media, five categories were used — unaided awareness, aided awareness, mobile ad awareness, brand favorability and purchase intent — comparing campaign effectiveness by ad vertical.  Mobile campaigns in the Retail Vertical showed the largest differences in three of the five categories; Aided Awareness, Purchase Intent, and Unaided Awareness, while CPG campaigns indexed high in the Brand Favorability category.

To wrap things up for this month’s report, Millennial revealed that 10 percent of its advertisers used rich media creative during January, while average monthly pageviews per user reached 127.  Most surprising of all though, was the fact that Apple impressions experienced the largest month over month increase ever in January at 71 percent.

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A new report published yesterday by the UN indicates that 67% of the world’s population, or two-thirds total, are mobile subscribers- far outweighing Online access.

67% of the world’s population represents around 4.6B people, up from only 1B in 2002, indicating staggering continued growth.  In developing nations, however, the uptake is even more substantial with 57% of the total population in these nations being mobile subscribers, even though other technologies are scarce.

To compile the report, the UN tallied mobile phone, land-line telephone and internet usage in 159 countries, which ranged from the most advanced European nations to the least developed nations in sub-Saharan Africa.  The report also found that Internet use has grown, but at a much slower pace.  It’s no secret that mobile devices are replacing computers in many parts of the world, and that a large majority of Web usage is attributed to mobile.

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The GSMA has announced the winners of the 15th annual Global Mobile Awards, choosing from over 500 entries from across the global mobile ecosystem.

The awards ceremony included the winners of 19 categories, covering Mobile Marketing and Advertising, Best Mobile Contribution to Social and Economic Development, the Green Mobile Awards, Mobile Personality of the Year, Mobile Innovation and Mobile Entertainment.

Interestingly enough, Steve Jobs, who won the award for “Mobile Personality of the Year,” wasn’t even there to accept, although the presence of Apple has been felt throughout all of this year’s Mobile World Congress.  Hit the read more link for a complete list of winners for this year’s awards.

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Millennial Media is the first to admit its feelings towards 2009 being the so-called “year of mobile,” as opposed to this year or any other that supposedly held the moniker.  To back up its position, Millennial has released a unique S.M.A.R.T report (Scorecard for Mobile Advertising Reach and Targeting) to detail some quick and interesting facts about 2009 in a simple year-in-review.

As seen through Millennial’s network, the top 5 smartphone devices in 2009, in terms of impression share, was the iPhone in first place, followed in order by the Blackberry Curve, Blackberry Pearl, T-Mobile/HTC G1 and the Blackberry Storm.  Apple OS impressions increased 357% from January to December 2009, backing up its number one position, while RIM OS impressions grew 90% in the same period, proving how far RIM devices have come in terms of mobile Web usage.

In terms of engagement, the average user-session time in 2009 was 5:02, while the average monthly ad requests per page view was 1.06.  Audience campaigns experienced a 153% CTR lift in 2009, while 17% of advertisers used rich media on a monthly basis.  In total, Millennial finished out the year with 3,759 devices in its network, a 353% increase in deal size year-over-year, a whopping 756% increase in brand-business and a 54% increase in advertisers overall.

With these kind of numbers, it’s easy to agree that 2009 could have held the title of “year of mobile,” though it will be interesting to see these same figures next year for comparison.  Any way you cut it, mobile advertising is growing at a break-neck pace, and a quick overview of stats to quantify things is always welcomed.

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With news coming out of Barcelona — and the industry in general — being focused heavily on mobile apps, Bango has released some interesting stats related to mobile Web usage, proving that while apps are indeed a rapidly growing segment, the mobile browser remains the most important app on any mobile device.

Over the last 12 months, Bango has been analyzing traffic to a range of mobile Websites by sampling across 50 million phone users worldwide who have accessed third party mobile sites through its platform.  In the end, Bango realized a 600% growth in traffic, representing six times the amount of traffic recorded the previous 12-month period.

Interestingly, the average time on site was measured as 3 minutes, 21 seconds- averaged across user visits to all sites, compared with just over one and half minutes the previous year.  The analysis also measured the average number of pages viewed per visit at 5 pages, up from just over 2 pages per visit twelve months before.  These site-level figures have increased by an average of 230% compared to a year ago, with consumers visiting sites more frequently from their phones and browsing more pages over longer periods of time.  The key categories for mobile browsing are news, sports and general media sites (including newspapers), mobile content downloads, social networking and retail sites.

Bango attributes the continued growth in mobile Web usage primarily to smartphone usage, with Blackberry accounting for over 17% of the mobile devices recorded across sites.  The number of visits by BlackBerry users also exceeds any other device, including the iPhone.  Factoring in the relative sales growth across the different smartphone brands the data suggests that iPhone browsing has, if anything, slightly declined per user measured, which could be a result of consumers being directed towards apps instead of websites.

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One of the biggest announcements thus far coming out of MWC is that of Adobe, who today will announce intentions to bring its AIR platform to mobile devices- essentially halting the problem of mobile app interoperability once and for all.

With AIR running on mobile devices, Adobe is furthering its plans to allow for a “write-once, deploy-anywhere” solution for both the mobile Web and apps- something plaguing developers faced with creating an app, then porting it to a growing number of devices, OSs and platforms since the beginning.

Adobe is starting things off with a focus on Blackberry and Android devices, allowing developers to create apps that are able to store data locally on the phone, access other data on the phones such as photos, and be distributed as regular apps in the Android and Blackberry app stores.  The same apps created with Flash developer tools will even be exportable as iPhone apps, creating a truly centralized and comprehensive development platform.

Adobe wants developers to create apps using its developer tools and then output them as AIR apps for Android and Blackberry phones, native iPhone apps, or Flash apps on the Web.  The company is trying to create a ubiquitous environment for its Flash technology, and is heavily integrated with the upcoming Flash 10.1 player.  Purposed to be available during the first-half of 2010, the new Flash player will run consistently across both the desktop and many mobile browsers (except the iPhone), negating the need for “Flash Lite.”

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I’ve long said that carriers continually miss the boat in terms of leveraging their position to capitalize on mobile marketing and advertising, and a new survey reinforces my stance even further.

CSS Insight, in its most recent survey, indicates that most consumers ignore the services offered by wireless carriers in favor of more familiar names on the Web. While the research suggests ways for network operators and phone-makers to maximize the uptake of the mobile Web, results indicate that many of these opportunities are being overlooked (again).

Most carrier-based “portals” and services such as Nokia’s Ovi are losing out to familiar Web brands like Facebook, Amazon and Twitter, who carry much more name recognition and worldwide appeal than that of a single carrier.  Still, carriers should have recognized the potential the mobile Web was inevitably going to provide and acted before it was too late.

Granted, the aforementioned survey was conducted in Europe, which differs slightly in terms of mobile tech and uptake than the US, but the sentiment remains the same- carriers have, again, failed to recognize an opportunity for immense revenue and user-interaction that would have kept them in front of their subscribers instead of pushing them away to third-party mobile Web content providers.

Martin Garner, Director of Mobile Internet at CCS Insight and one of the report’s authors, said: “Our survey reveals the true picture of mobile Internet usage among young consumers in Europe’s top five markets.  It shows that as smartphones become more affordable, people are using them to access the sites they know and love on their PCs.  Mobile network operators and handset manufacturers are losing the battle to define the mobile Internet experience, despite the huge sums they’re pouring into sites that compete with the familiar Web names.”

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