Millennial: Apple Devices Top Mobile Ad Impressions, Expect Lead To Grow With New iPhone

Millennial Media sent out its quarterly Mobile Mix report for the second quarter of 2012 today, and the number tells a story of rising fortunes for Samsung in smartphones, and of continued success for Apple, with a potential explosion on the horizon for the iPhone-maker when the next version makes its debut. iOS also grew its share of the overall OS picture, but Android still took the lion’s share of impressions overall with 46% for the quarter.

Apple took the top prize for manufacturers, seeing 31.38% (vs. 28.32% last quarter) of overall device impressions, and the iPhone was the top device, with 15.84% (up slightly from 15.10% in Q1)  of the share, compared to just 4.96% for the next closest handset, RIM’s BlackBerry Curve. Still, Samsung also made a strong showing, with eight separate devices in the top 20 overall combining for 13 percent of the pie. On top of that, every Samsung phone that appeared on the list grew its share of impressions when compared to the previous quarter.

The numbers are good for both Apple and Samsung, but maybe more impressive for Apple if only because the company saw growth despite the fact that the current iPhone was essentially stale-dated thanks to widespread anticipation of a fall launch for a new model. But the best is yet to come, since the launch of a new device almost always generates a huge spike for Apple in Millennial’s metrics.

When the iPhone 4S came out, impressions took off, growing 200% in its first week and 1800% once it had been on the market for a full month. Many considered that device an incremental update over the iPhone 4, and the next iPhone promises to be a much more dramatic redesign, so look for an even bigger impact on ad impressions this time around.