Apple iAd Gouges Other Advertisers for Mobile Ads Market Share

When Apple introduced iAd there were plenty of the usual nay-sayers around to predict that Apple’s foray into mobile advertising would not end well. And initially Apple seemed to be positioning their iAd advertising network to be a monopoly they controlled on the iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad. They seemed to be ensuring that by locking other popular advertising networks like Google’s AdMob out of iOS.

Recently Apple has relaxed the rules that seemed as they were targeted at making AdMob less appealing on the iPhone. Opening up the playing field in the early stages of iAd’s emergence into the market. This may have been because of regulatory pressure in part, but is probably more indicative of just how confident Apple was of iAd very soon after announcing it to the world.

When Apple initially started selling advertisements many agencies and advertisers complained very vocally about the amount of control Apple chose to exert over the creative process behind producing ads. Primarily this was actually because Apple had not yet got its iAd creative tools up to speed, and in a state that they felt able to push out to agencies as software and systems that they could use as third parties.

Others expressed concern that Apple’s advertising rates were just too high.

Carol Bartz, CEO of Yahoo chimed in and predicted that iAd would fail because Apple was exerting too much control.

Well the figures are in…

Apple has gone from 0% of the mobile advertising market to 21% in a few short months. And the 21% of the market that iAd has grabbed for Apple has come directly from Google’s AdMob, and Yahoo’s and Microsoft’s advertising networks.

So, who’s looking silly now? Can Microsoft, Google and Yahoo learn something from Apple here? Have your say in the comments…

[BusinessWeek]

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