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Feb. 6, 2010

There are now more and more Android MIDs (mobile Internet devices) on the market today, and Smaato's ad metrics for last month show a pretty good improvement of Android device click-through-rates (CTR) compared to December.

But overall, Symbian wireless handsets remained at the top of the worldwide list nevertheless, said Smaato.

The metric firm says that the average fill rate of mobile ad networks in the U.S. was about 46.9 percent last month, down from about 55.2 percent in December.

Similar to December 2009, it still remains significantly higher than the global average fill rate of just 29 percent.

Smaato added that the boost in Android click-through-rates comes with a large uptake in Android ad requests in the Smaato network and newly introduced Android phones by Google (Nexus One), Motorola (the Droid) and various other mobile handsets branded by other wireless carriers.

In January, AdMob noted that the iPhone and iPod touch have fueled much of AdMob's growth as a mobile ad network over the past two years.

In December of last year, about 36 percent of AdMob ad requests came from the iPhone and iPod touch, with the majority of them coming from mobile apps.

Overall, Smaato's metrics are based on about thity-four mobile ad networks and over 4.2 billion ad requests served in the Smaato Network of more than 2,320 registered mobile publishers that were in last month's database.

Last month, electronics retailer Best Buy said that smartphones and netbooks helped increase its Christmas and Holiday sales almost 13.1 percent to $8.5 billion.

Overall, TVs, laptops and digital imaging devices also added to the increase as well, although at a lesser extent.

In its latest earnings statement published Jan. 7, Best Buy said its U.S. division "continued to experience very strong market share gains" in November, a trend that continued throughout the month of December.

"We believe that these sales gains were most pronounced in categories deemed critical to our connected world strategy such as TVs, notebook computers, digital imaging and mobile phones," the company said in a statement.

Comparable store sales also rose almost 9.4 percent in the U.S. and 3.5 percent internationally.

U.S. sales accounted for $6.7 billion, while international sales hit just $1.8 billion.

Best Buy has moved very aggressively to cash in on pent-up consumer demand for smartphones and netbooks, opening 40 new standalone mobile phone stores in the 2009 fiscal year.

Last August, Best Buy CEO Brian Dunn said that his company can bring its share of the U.S. handset market to about 15 percent over the next several years.

Best Buy also owns Future Shop in Canada, but there's still no news from FSs' stores as of yet. As of Dec. 15, 2009, Future Shop had over 450 stores in Canada.

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Source: Smaato.