Admob: Android mobile ads to overtake Apple’s within a year

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Flashing his 750 million dollar smile on stage at MobileBeat 2010, Admob’s Omar Hamoui (now VP of Mobile Ads at Google) coyly discussed how it had felt to be courted by both Google and Apple, the potential implications of an Apple block on the firm’s mobile ads and what contingencies were in place to cope with that eventuality.
Admitting that it was something of a “Startup dream to be stuck in a fight between Google and Apple,” Hamoui also said he had seriously considered going with Apple, although he didn’t elaborate on what changed his mind in Google’s favor. [Probably a few extra million G’s – Ed]
“The FCC nearly wrecked the whole thing,” said Hamoui, not pulling any punches about the commission’s threat to nix the deal on the basis of anti-competitiveness, but added “it all worked out for the best.” Ironically, probably thanks to Apple and its iAd platform.

Unsurprising then that Hamoui has some rather flattering things to say about his competition, noting that iAd had “a really interesting take” on mobile advertising and that “having the Apple sheen is an important thing,” as was having Steve Jobs talk about mobile advertising in general.  “Anyone trying to get advertisers into mobile is a good thing. It’s not a zero sum game,” he said.
It wasn’t all sunshine and lollipops in terms of Hamoui’s feelings towards the Jobs mob, however, especially in terms of the firm’s new developer agreement which could potentially lock Admob out of the iPhone ad space. Hamoui said Admob was “very thankful,” Apple hadn’t enforced the letter of its ban yet, but admitted his firm had had to think of contingency plans around other platforms just in case.
The loss to Admob, if Apple does enforce its new regulations, would be “very substantial” said Hamoui, seeing as the iPhone currently represents around 30% of Admob’s business.
“They haven’t done it thus far and I’m very hopeful they won’t,” he said but tutted that either way Apple had succeeded in bringing “a degree of general uncertainty” into the mobile advertising space.
Towing the Google line to perfection, Hamoui spoke of Android’s “undeniable” momentum and even posited that despite developer complaints, fragmentation was not “so much of an issue.” Apparently this is because Google has hinted at the fact it will start releasing incessant updates on a slightly slower basis in the future. Also helpful to Admob is that 80% of its Android users are split between HTC and Motorola phones.
“Android is going to take its place as an extremely important platform for people to invest in,” he gushed, going on to say that Android would overtake Apple in terms of ads within the next year.
Indeed, Hamoui declared that global mobile advertising was already a multi billion dollar business and wouldn’t stop growing any time soon. Benevolently for a firm which recently had a near total control of the mobile advertising market, Hamoui also said he believed “having three or four platforms that matter is important, it’s not good to have just one.”
It’s not just competing ad platforms Hamoui is enthusiastic about, the Admob chief seems to want mobile publishers to make his life that little bit harder too. “there’s really nothing an ad network can do that a publisher can’t do,” he said opining that mobile publishers needed to have more tools at their disposal to bring them up to speed and add a level of standardization to the market.
Despite the fact Hamoui said he believed high end phones would become really prevalent in the next few years, it’s not just the US and smartphones that Admob’s interested in. India, with its millions and millions of feature phones is currently the firm’s second biggest market.
“India is an important market. It’s a very large market,” he said adding that a lot of web use was happening on mobile devices in India as well as the rest of the developing world.
He admitted, however, that while feature phones were currently important they were not a growing market and Admob believes India will start transitioning to higher end phones “within a short amount of time.”
Good thing, too, according to Hamoui who reckons feature phones won’t ever “reach the levels of attention we’re seeing for smartphones.”