THE world’s largest independent mobile advertising network, InMobi, has announced that African mobile advertising market has grown by 21% over past three months.
InMobi Managing Director and Vice President for Africa, Isis Nyong’o, says her company research shows that South Africa recorded 946 million mobile monthly impressions, which InMobi described as the largest market in the African continent.
“The mobile advertising market in Africa continues to grow quickly. With InMobi reaching over 30 million Africans, mobile is now a must buy media for major brands looking to grow their business on the continent,” says Nyong’o.
The InMobi report indicates that a total of 4.2 billion impressions were recorded in a month in Africa thereby going up 21% from 3.5 billion in January 2011.
The report confirms that South Africa, Nigeria and Egypt remain the largest mobile markets in Africa.
South Africa maintains the position as the largest mobile market with more than 946 million impressions a month, which equates to 24% share of the African market.
Nyong’o cited key highlights of the South Africa data, which among them includes strong growth in smartphone impressions, with about 221 million mobile advertising monthly impressions.
InMobi further announced that Research In Motion (RIM), the manufacturers or BlackBerry is showing strong growth in the market with a 3.5 share points increase.
The research shows that RIM now maintains a 10.8% share while, Android presence in the market recorded well over 8 million monthly impressions.
Nokia, however remained the largest manufacturer with a 38.2% share, but it has lost 5 points in just 90 days to both Samsung (+3.4 share points) and RIM .While the data indicates that smartphones impressions grew at a consistent pace, advanced phones still dominate the market with an average of 85% share.
By: Goodman Majola – Senior ICT Journalist
