Velti Mobile Ad Report: iOS Pulls Way Ahead of Android, iPod Touch Beating iPad

After spending last year engaged in a “tug-of-war” with Android over mobile ad impressions, iOS has been building a big lead in the past few months, according to a new report from mobile marketing company Velti.

Velti’s past reports pegged iOS share of mobile ad impressions at 53 percent in March, which increased to 55 percent in April, and now to 59 percent in May. The report also points out the strong performance of the iPod Touch, which received 14.9 percent of total ad impressions — not just more than any Android device, but also more than the iPad.

Speaking of the iPad, Velti says Apple’s new-ish tablet seems to be growing (at least on the mobile ad side) more slowly than the iPad 2. At this point in its release cycle, the iPad 2 had 21 percent of total ad impressions, while the new iPad (boy, it’s awkward to distinguish between them when they don’t have numbers) only has 13 percent.

The report isn’t all about Apple. In fact, it leads with data from Velti’s mobile payments platform ZayPay showing that the average transaction amount has increased 9 percent in the past three months. The report also notes that 75 percent of ads are delivered via WiFi — probably due in part to the aforementioned iPod Touch, which is WiFi-only. And when it comes to app categories, Velti says education is currently the most lucrative, with an average eCPM (price per thousand impressions) of $0.92.

The data is based on data from Velti’s Mobclix Exchange, which supposedly serves ads to more than 33,500 apps.