Tablets Take Off In 2012 According To Millennial, With Kindle Fire And iPad Mini Seeing Rapid Growth

In a new report from mobile ad platform Millennial Media, the company compiles its data on mobile device share across its network for all of 2012, revealing that tablets in particular accounted for a rising percentage of impressions, with Android devices stepping up their game considerably. The Kindle Fire and Samsung tablets were the big share winners, helping Android slates grab a considerable 41 percent of the tablet mix, compared to 58 percent for Apple.

Millennial didn’t actually break out the overall values of tablet traffic in its 2011 report, but you can see from its February 2011 snapshot that the tablet/e-reader and other category had iOS at 80 percent share, with Android at just 17 percent and other at 3 percent. Android has clearly gained a lot of ground, then, and the main OEMs reaping the benefits of that growth are Samsung, which has 45 percent of the Android tablet share, and Amazon, which managed to acquire 26 percent thanks to the release of the second-generation Kindle Fire line, representing over 500 percent growth from its share in 2011.

Smartphone share also grew during the year, up from 68 percent to 75 percent, with non-phone connected devices (including tablets) also growing considerably as well, from 15 to 25 percent. The feature phone category gave up tons of ground, going from 17 percent to 5 percent share. Overall OS mix, despite Android’s tablet gains, actually didn’t shift all that much, with Android gaining one percentage point overall in 2012 versus 2011, and iOS losing one. BlackBerry remained steady in third, and Windows Phone gained a single percentage point.

Millennial notes that Android continues to take up more places in the top 20 mobile phones list on its platform, while Apple continues to be the market leader with its devices in each respective category, generating an outsized helping of traffic share from just a few core devices. The iPhone ranks number one among mobile phones, growing its share from 14.67 percent in 2011 to 15.59 percent in 2012. Samsung took over the number two spot from BlackBerry with its Galaxy S line, with 4.24 percent of impressions for 2012, growing 182 percent year-over-year.

The iPad mini was among Apple’s strongest performers, growing its share of impressions at an average daily rate of 28 percent within just weeks of its initial launch. Millennial says that’s a new best for the 7-inch tablet category, eclipsing the rapid 19 percent daily average established by the original Kindle Fire during its launch back in 2011. Overall, the picture that’s shaping up looks like it will see smartphone share start to even out as they eclipse feature phones entirely, with tablets making up an increasingly important piece of the pie, if the trends Millennial is seeing continue.