Data from AdMob Inc.'s July Mobile Metrics Report shows that Nokia is gaining share among browsers in the mobile ad network's global footprint.

Nokia and Openwave are the top browsers in AdMob's network with 34 percent and 29 percent share, respectively. This marks AdMob's first break out of worldwide browser share in its network.

"You see Nokia browsers go where Nokia devices go, so they benefit from Nokia's strong handset share," said Jason Spero, vice president of marketing at AdMob, San Mateo, CA.

Per the report, Windows Mobile, BlackBerry, Palm and the Apple Safari all had less than 5 percent market share on a worldwide basis in the AdMob network.

"They're small in global share, but growing rapidly," Mr. Spero said.

Nokia is even stronger in some markets.

For example, the Nokia browser share is 50.6 percent in Africa, indicating its commanding handset market share in that continent.

Turning its focus to Africa this month, AdMob found that its mobile Web traffic across that region for the first two quarters of this year increased 21 percent. Nigeria and Egypt posted particularly strong growth.

Nokia is the leading handset manufacturer in each of the top five African countries -- South Africa, Nigeria, Kenya, Egypt and Tanzania.

Meanwhile, AdMob served 3,991,772,572 ads worldwide in July, a 10 percent jump over the prior month.

AdMob placed certain minimum thresholds to limit ads served in low-performing inventory. This measure led to a slight decline in its worldwide fill rate to 88 percent, though the U.S. fill rate was high at 98 percent, the report said.

"The quality initiative is designed to provide optimal user experience and advertiser results," Mr. Spero said.

That said, worldwide traffic grew 18 percent and U.S. requests for ads on the AdMob network were up 5.8 percent month over month. British traffic dropped a half point from June, though.

Traffic from smartphones continued to increase: 25.6 percent of the worldwide ad requests within the AdMob network in July were from smartphones, an increase from 24.3 percent in June.

In other findings, the Nokia N95 handset has overtaken the SonyEricsson k800i to become the leading mobile device in Britain with an 8.3 percent market share in July.

AdMob this month added the Philippines as a country breakout due to continued strong growth in that market.

The report claims that 34 percent of traffic in the Philippines comes from smartphones and more than 20 percent from devices with extra large screen size. Both metrics are much higher than other countries in the AdMob network.

Also, the Sony PlayStation Portable and the iPod touch are both in the top 20 devices in that country.

The latest metrics from the AdMob network proves the growing use of the mobile Internet and the viewing of mobile ads.

"People are consuming the mobile Web and to see about 6 percent growth month-over-month is really exciting," Mr. Spero said.