Smartphone market share numbers are one indicator of their relative popularity, but there is another, perhaps more telling metric that shows just how big (I am tempted to use to word tectonic) a shift is happening in the market.

AdMob (acquired by Google for USD 750 M on November 9, 2009) is a mobile advertising network which has served nearly 150 Billion ads through over 15,000 mobile sites and applications since 2006. In addition to serving ads, they collect and publish information about what kind of devices mobile users are using to view the sites.

The usage metrics complement nicely the market share data — by overlaying the two data sets, a more complete view of what happens in the smart phone landscape emerges.

The latest full month AdMob statictics currently available are for November 2009. What this data shows is that Android phones already account for 27 % of smart phone traffic in the US, up from just 7 % in six months. Perhaps even more remarkably, the Android share was up a whopping 7 percentage points from October.

Motorola Droid which was released in early November climbed to the top 5 in its first month, getting a 3.3 % share of all ad requests. Preliminary December numbers confirm that the Droid is a runaway success, with the number of requests having more than doubled from November.

Android Statistics from AdMob

The world-wide statistics also indicate a very robust showing by Android: in April 2009 there were 100 million requests by Android devices and the number had grown to more than 500 million in October and over 1 Billion in December. We think a ten-fold increase in eight months can safely be called exponential.

While it might be tempting to dismiss Android as a US phenomenon, the numbers from the UK suggest something else. Android usage has already passed Symbian in December and these numbers are Pre-Milestone (the European name for Droid).

The AdMob data gives rise to some other interesting conclusions:

• Blackberry devices (by RIM) only account for 10 % of the traffic in the US even though their smart phone unit market share is significantly higher. There are probably two factors that explain this anomaly: RIM is mainly a business device used for email, not for web browsing, and the browsing capabilities of most Blackberry devices are fairly limited.
• When comparing device usage to their market share, there are three standouts: Apple iPhone, Android, and Palm; all are used far more than their market share alone would suggest.
• Palm is losing steam. The Pre only accounted for 1.1 % of all traffic, losing a full percentage point in one month.
• The usage share of Symbian-based devices varies dramatically in different markets.  While Symbian (which is more or less synonymous with Nokia) accounts for over 90 % of usage in India and over 80 % in South Africa, the share drops to 9 % in the UK and to less than 1 % in the US.

Is there a lesson in all this?

We believe there is. Or, in fact, there are several:

1. Android is here to stay. Despite a fairly slow start, it seems to be catching on and the fast usage growth indicates a good user experience and positive word of mouth, leading to fast sales growth. We expect the the Google Nexus One and the new models from other manufacturers to further accelerate this trend.
2. It is all about the web. The players that have concentrated on a good web browsing experience on their handsets — Apple,  Google, and Palm (despite their recent usage slump) — are seeing far stronger usage growth than the also-rans.
3. Nokia might be in more trouble than they care to admit on the smart phone front. While they certainly dominate in some emerging markets, their usage share in key western market is dismal.