Opera Mediaworks’ Q2 report also shows entertainment dominating evening hours, peak morning use of sports apps
San Mateo, Calif. — The very first app most U.S. mobile users open in the morning is for social networking, and the last one at night is for entertainment — but the app category with the highest loyalty, or frequent and consistent use, is news & information, Opera Mediaworks notes today in its Q2 2015 State of Mobile Advertising report.
The second quarter, marked by a number of major overlapping sporting events, including the NHL and NBA championships and the opening of the American baseball season, also showed high use of sports apps, with a more distinct preference for morning than any other of the popular categories.
Here are the key findings of the report:
Spike in Sports moves publisher category rankings
- The number of total ad impressions served to mobile apps and sites in the Sports category increased, resulting in a dramatic jump from no. 8 to no. 2 in the traffic rankings, just behind Social Networking.
- Social apps and sites were still the clear leader in Q2 for both traffic and revenue, accounting for 31.5% of all impressions and 17.7% of revenue.
- News and Information, Games, and the Music, Video & Media categories were also top performers, all placing in the top 5 for revenue generated for publishers.
Android maintains overall lead over iOS, but still no. 2 for monetization potential
- After taking the no. 1 spot for monetization for the first time last quarter, Android maintained its lead, capturing the most revenue (47.7%) and impressions (63.7%) in Q2.
- iOS still leads all device platforms for monetization potential, driven by the iPad, which generated revenue that is more than 4.4X its share of impressions.
- Video advertising is highly represented on tablets, with far more traffic and revenue share than seen on smartphones. This is true across both brand and user-acquisition campaigns.
Mobile apps: Ad types, revenue patterns
- Apps still receive the majority of traffic (56%) and revenue (71%), even as mobile-web-traffic volume increases due to international growth on the mobile ad platform.
- Gaming apps provided the highest eCPMs, due in part to a relatively high number of performance, cost-per-installation (CPI) campaigns, most of which are video.
- Entertainment apps display mostly premium banner ads from top brand advertisers and rich-media campaigns; Social Networking apps tend to stick with simple banner ads.
Africa and the Middle East rising; strong demand for video in Australia, Japan
- While still holding fairly small impression share (6.9% and 2.4% respectively), Africa and the Middle East are emerging as the latest new players in the global mobile ad market.
- Australia had the highest mobile video index, based on the ratio of video ad share to total ad impressions served there (3.9X). Japan and Germany also indexed high, with ratios of more than 2.5X.
To see the full report, visit http://operamediaworks.com/insights/sma_Q2_2015.html/.
About Opera Mediaworks
Opera Mediaworks is the first mobile ad platform for brands, delivering surprise and delight at scale. Our technology powers the biggest publishers in the world and enables marketers to provide the highest quality experiences to more people in more places when it matters most. Our exclusive Instant-Play™HD video technology and award-winning rich media touches, engages and creates deep interaction with consumers in the most popular mobile apps and sites around the globe. We work with over 90% of the AdAge Top 100 advertisers and 18 of the top 25 global publishers. A fully-owned subsidiary of Opera Software, Opera Mediaworks is headquartered in San Mateo, California, with offices worldwide. To learn more, visit www.operamediaworks.com.
