Visualizing Google’s Dominance Of Mobile Advertising

A report on mobile apps report released today by security firm Lookout is being used to discuss the relative sizes and growth of Apple and Google’s apps marketplaces. Called the “App Genome Report,” the much more striking thing it reveals is just how dominant Google is already in app-display advertising.

Take a look at these graphs, which show the penetration of different ad networks/platforms in the iTunes app store and the Android Market:

In the Android Market there’s no one within a mile of Google-owned AdMob. The next network in line is “Google Ads.” In the iTunes app store, iAd appears to be challenging, however. Otherwise the other networks have a paltry share of the action.

Google Dominate Mobile Search & Display

According to a late 2010 US mobile ad forecast by IDC Google dominates mobile advertising (search is the majority) by a considerable margin. When search and display revenues are combined, IDC thinks US ad revenues are divided like this:

• Google: 59%
• Apple: 8.4%
• Millennial: 6.8%
• Yahoo: 5.6%
• Microsoft: 4.3%
• Other: 15.9%

Google’s share is nearly 60%, more than all the others combined. Now here’s what Stat Counter says about the distribution of mobile search share in the US market:

Android and the iPhone are right now the two platforms that really matter. RIM has a very large installed user base but, absent dramatic changes, its share will wane. Its users aren’t as engaged on the mobile internet as either iPhone or Android users. And on both the iPhone and Android handsets Google is by far the dominant search engine, as the chart indicates.

Google’s Billion Dollar Mobile Run Rate

On its Q3 earnings call last year Google said it had a “billion dollar run-rate” in mobile. And one financial analyst estimated that Google would be making almost $10 per Android user as early as next year.

It seems remarkable, but given the data above Google could become much more dominant in mobile than it is on the PC.

Despite what you might think that’s not such a good thing for Google. My own view is that if Android fulfills all its projected growth estimates and becomes the world’s largest smartphone platform, EU antitrust officials will eventually seek to separate Google from control over the Android platform.