Variety of Android Based Phones Increasing

­AdMob has published its monthly view of the market and noted that the diversity of devices in the Android ecosystem is increasing, driven by the launch of new devices from different manufacturers with various form factors, capabilities, and OS versions over the past seven months. In contrast, the iPhone OS runs on devices from a single manufacturer, a single form factor (until the launch of the iPad in April), and all devices have the ability to upgrade OS versions.

In March 2010, there were 34 Android devices from 12 manufacturers available to consumers. In AdMob's network in March 2010, 11 devices accounted for 96 per cent of Android traffic, up from two devices in September 2009. The three primary versions of the Android OS all drove significant traffic in March 2010 - Android 1.5 (38 per cent), Android 2.0/2.1 (35 per cent) and Android 1.6 (26 per cent). Motorola and HTC were the leading Android device manufacturers with 44 per cent and 43 per cent of respective traffic.

Highlights from the March 2010 AdMob Mobile Metrics Report include:

Motorola Droid was the leading Android handset in March 2010 generating 32 per cent of Android traffic, while the Google Nexus One drove only two per cent of Android traffic.
At least 54 per cent of Android traffic came from devices with a QWERTY keyboard.
Three devices - the iPhone 3GS (39 per cent), second generation iPod touch (25 per cent) and iPhone 3G (20 per cent) - generated 84 per cent of total iPhone OS traffic.
iPhone 3GS traffic share has increased from 30 per cent in September 2009 to 39 per cent in March 2010. The 1st Generation iPhone only generated 2 per cent of iPhone OS requests in March 2010.
Total worldwide traffic in AdMob's network increased 18 per cent month-over-month.