AdMob: iPhone's share of the smartphone market hits a record 40%

Source: AdMob

Apple (AAPL) now has a substantial -- if not the largest -- share of the smartphone market in every region of the world except Asia and Africa, according to a report issued Wednesday by AdMob.

Overall, the iPhone's worldwide share grew to 40% from 33% over the last six months. In North America, its share of the smartphone market is 52%, as measured by hits on AdMob's ads.

AdMob, which bills itself as the world's largest mobile advertising marketplace, delivers ads displayed on smartphone screens, so its statistics tends to favor phones heavily used for Web surfing. "AdMob does not claim that this information will be necessarily representative of the mobile Web as a whole or of any particular country market," it warns at the bottom of the report. "AdMob's traffic is driven by publisher relationships and may be influenced accordingly."

Among the report's other findings:

• Although its marketshare has been declining, Nokia (NOK) continues to hold 12 of the top 20 smartphone devices in AdMob's network. Nokia's N97 and 5800 XpressMusic touchscreen devices were the fourth and fifth most popular smartphones in the UK in August.
• Research in Motion's (RIMM) BlackBerry share declined only slightly over the last 6 months. There are 7 RIM models in the top 20 smartphones in North America.
• Google's (GOOG) Android is growing rapidly in North America and Western Europe. The HTC Magic (my Touch) is a Top 10 smartphone in both North America and Western Europe.
• Palm's (PALM) Pre also had a strong month due to the addition of new publishers to the AdMob network.

To read AdMob's report, click here. For an analysis of why it may unrepresent Apple's competitors, see Silicon Alley Insider's Dan Frommer here.

Below: AdMob's graphs showing the changes in worldwide OS share and the distribution of that share by region.