iPad helps iOS maintain lead against Android as most valuable mobile ad platform

Opera MediaWorks is out today with its latest report on the state of mobile platforms for Q3 2013. The report, which gathers data from billions of ad impressions each month, notes that iOS continues the lead for mobile advertising, with around 44.4% of all ad requests and 50% of revenue on its platform. That's compared to 31.32% for Android, but the lead for Apple is mostly thanks to gains from iPad.

Remove tablets from the equation and ad impressions on iPhone and Android smartphones fall to just 31% vs. 30.3%:

It is worth noting that the iPad and other tablet devices continue to become more important to mobile advertising. Together, iPad and Android tablets make up almost 10% of all impressions served. One year ago (Q3 2012), tablets accounted for just 5% of total impressions. However, in the case of impressions served, this lead is based on the success of the iPad. When comparing just the iPhone to Android smartphones, the difference is less than one percentage point (31% vs. 30.3%).

There might be good reason that more ads are being served on iOS despite Android being the larger of the two smartphone platforms. A somewhat unbelievable number in a report yesterday claimed that iOS ads are generating up to 1,790 percent, or almost 18x more return on investment than ads on Android.

The numbers come from advertising platform Nanigans ( via VentureBeat), which studied more than 200 billion ads on Facebook for the study. According to the report, iOS ads aren't just generating more ROI than on other platforms, but returns on Android are typically a 10 percent loss vs the cost of the ads. That means Nanigans is seeing investors increasingly upping their advertising budget on iOS and decreasing it on Android.

While Nanigans doesn't offer any specific reason for the incredibly higher ROI on iOS, Opera MediaWorks says that iOS users simply spend more time with their device, browse the web more, and use more applications.

Opera MediaWorks report today also estimates that around 61.09% of iOS users have upgraded to iOS 7 since it's release on September 18. That compares to just 49.77% for Jelly Bean on Android since its release back in July 2012. Opera's number seems to be slightly lower than the almost 70% on iOS 7 estimated by app marketing platform Fiksu's usage tracker as of today.

If you're wondering where Opera MediaWorks, one of the largest mobile advertising platforms around, gots its data: The results above are from analysis of over 60 billion ad impressions per month that reach around 400 million consumers worldwide on mobile devices through over 13k sites and apps.