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More ad requests now come from the Apple iPhone than Apple iPod touch, Android is now the second most popular OS, and while consumers generally dodge advertising, when it comes to mobile ads, they’re far more receptive. These findings were among the consumer preferences and device uses revealed by the latest JiWire Mobile Audience Insights report.
The report particularly focused on how users consume mobile content and found that in the last 30 days, more than half of the 2,000-plus respondents it surveyed clicked on an ad in a mobile application, and 18 percent made a purchase as a result.
Additionally, 76 percent of respondents said they preferred free apps with advertising to paying for one without any; 84 percent were likely to engage with an ad relevant to their location and 53 percent were willing to share information about their location to receive more relevant advertising.
“People have a completely different perception of mobile content and advertising when they’re on-the-go, compared to when they’re at home or in the office,” David Staas, senior vice president of marketing at JiWire, said in a May 12 statement. “With nearly half of the on-the-go mobile audience saying they are more likely to engage with an ad that is relevant to their current location, this is an opportunity brands and agencies are more rapidly embracing.”
Opportunities for such embraces have grown as well, states the report, with WiFi usage increasing 15.8 percent since the fourth quarter of 2009, thanks to both an increase in the number of free WiFi hotspots and the growing use of WiFi-enabled devices. The use of WiFi in cafes alone, according to the report, rose 50 percent during the first quarter of 2010.
And the devices consumers are using? They’re increasingly, and very dominantly, iPhones, with ad requests from the Apple smartphones growing 13.6 percent over the quarter – for a total of 56.9 percent of all ad requests – and flip-flopping the iPhone to the number one spot and the iPod touch, with 38.5 percent of requests, to number two.
When gauging device use by operating system, the iPhone OS ruled, accounting for 95.4 percent of requests. This was followed by Android, with 2.3 percent of requests, Symbian, with 1.9 and RIM with 0.9 percent. It was Symbian that showed the strongest growth, however, “gaining 211 percent market share, while RIM OS, Windows Mobile OS, webOS and others all [showed] decreases,” JiWire said in a statement.
Fifty-five percent of respondents now own an app-enabled smartphone, and the app category they’re most accessing are for social networks (63 percent), followed by weather and news (each with 60 percent) and travel (45 percent). Games, with a 36 percent share, followed music and entertainment, with 36 percent.
Finally, also of interest to these mobile users is the Apple iPad, which accounted for 1.53 percent of all unique ad requests – not bad for a brand new device during its first month on the market, said JiWire. Additionally, 23 percent of the audience it deemed “on-the-go” users said they planned to buy an iPad in the next 12 months. While 40 percent of those respondents currently own an iPhone or iPod touch, 24 percent owned BlackBerry handsets and 6 percent were Android users.
“This shows the iPad is going to be a big crossover device for a lot of non-Apple mobile owners,” stated JiWire.