Tablets have doubled their share of mobile ad impressions over the past year, with the iPad gaining most ground, according to the Q3 2013 Global AdMetrics Report from Adfonic, which pulls data from Adfonic’s platform. Tablets share of overall impressions grew from 14 per cent in Q4 2012 to 28 per cent in Q3 2013, while the iPads share of tablet impressions grew from 58 per cent to 76 per cent over the same period.

Adfonic also found that Apple increased its dominance over other manufacturers, with 63 per cent of mobile ad impressions in Q3 2013, compared to 41 per cent in Q4 2012. The report also reveals that mobile publishers are placing significantly more of their premium inventory on the mobile Real Time Bidding (RTB) exchanges, with demand growing from 342m ad requests in Q4 2012 and doubling from 949m in Q2 2013, to reach 1.9bn in Q3 2013. At this run rate, Adfonic predicts that Q4 2013 could see over 4bn ad requests coming from RTB-enabled premium inventory.

“Were seeing many analysts and retailers predict tablets to be the hot presents for this year, and certainly we saw substantial demand last year,” said Victor Malachard, Adfonic’s CEO and co-founder. “The great news for advertisers is that users show greater tendency to respond to ads on tablet devices, plus the larger screen estate means they can embrace compelling formats such as rich media, which include elements that users can interact with and further enhance their brand engagement.”

Apple retained its place as the strongest manufacturer by volume, with 63 per cent of all global ad impressions. Looking back over previous quarters, Apple also increased its share of global impressions against the ‘long tail’ of manufacturers (all mobile device manufacturers other than Apple and Samsung).

Having started with a marginally greater share of impressions than the long tail in Q4 2012 (41 per cent compared to 36 per cent), Apple pulled ahead of the pack to achieve 45 per cent of impressions in Q1 2013, then 61 per cent in Q2 2013 and finally 63 per cent in Q3 2013. That is nearly twice the impressions of Samsung and the long tail combined. Samsung just about maintained its share of impressions, going from 23 per cent in Q4 2012, to 25 per cent in Q1 2013, then 20 per cent in Q2 and again in Q3.