Just a few months into 2014, the mobile advertising industry is already showing signs of big shifts in mobile traffic and monetization patterns. Android has become the biggest platform globally for mobile ad traffic surpassing iOS, according to Opera Mediaworks’ Q1 2014 State of Mobile Advertising report. Android phones crept up to take the majority market share from the iPhone at the end of 2013, but traditionally iOS as a platform has always captured the most traffic.

Now, for the first time, the Android OS has the most traffic (42.8% vs. iOS’s 38.2%) — and it is slowly increasing its mobile ad monetization as well - now accounting for over 33% of revenue compared to 26.7% at this time last year.

Among device makers, Samsung came out the clear winner in the Android devices market with more than 60% of impressions, followed by LG, Motorola, HTC and ZTE.

Turning attention back to the global stage, in Q4 2013, impression data showed Asia jump in front of Europe as the second largest mobile ad market, after the U.S. This quarter it could even strengthen its lead and now accounts for 23% of global impressions compared to Europe’s 13.5%. Thus, even though the United States continues to drive the majority of ad traffic (50.61%) and revenue on the Opera Mediaworks platform, Asia is now in a solid second place, as it has leapfrogged Europe.

In the United Kingdom, however, iOS is still the leader, capturing 55% of ad impressions and a whopping 66.9% of ad revenue. Overall, based on ad requests sent to the Opera Mediaworks platform, iOS devices are 62.3% of U.K. unique users, with Android at a mere 18.6% and BlackBerry still alive in the market at 14%.

Interesting insights from Opera, we think, and we’ll keep you posted.

By MediaBUZZ