IDC: Google now controls 59% of U.S. mobile advertising marke

Google is on pace to control 59 percent of the U.S. mobile advertising market by the end of 2010, according to research firm IDC. A year ago, prior to its $750 million acquisition of mobile advertising network AdMob, Google represented 48.6 percent of the U.S. mobile ad market (including search and display ads), IDC notes; Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL), which in January 2010 acquired mobile ad network Quattro Wireless for $275 million and introduced its iAd platform in July, will finish the year controlling 8.4 percent of the market, the researcher adds.

Millennial Media will finish the year in third with 6.8 percent of the market, up from 5.4 percent. Both Yahoo and Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) lost market share in 2010, IDC reports: Yahoo is down from 7 percent in 2009 to 5.6 percent in 2010, while Microsoft slipped from 6.3 percent a year ago to 5.4 percent.

The U.S. mobile ad market more than doubled over the past year to $877 million, IDC states. The firm said it believes Google will continue to build its market lead as its Android mobile operating system continues to grow. Android controls 23.5 percent of the U.S. smartphone market as of October 2010 per comScore data, up from 17.0 percent three months earlier.

BlackBerry shipments up 40% in Q3

RIM's revenues rose 40% year-on-year and shipped 14.2 million BlackBerry smartphones in its fiscal third quarter, which ended on 27 November. That's up 40% year-on-year, despite stiff competition from iPhone and Android in RIM's key North American markets.

RIM's revenues were also up 40% year-on-year, rising $5.5 billion, as the company added around 5.1 million net new BlackBerry subscriber accounts in its Q3, bringing the total to more than 55 million.

RIM reported net income for its Q3 of $911.1 million, up from $796.7 million a year ago.

RIM's BlackBerry App World is now generating two million downloads a day, and has 16,000 apps available, according to RIM

Microsoft confirms 1.5 million Windows Phone 7 handset sales

Microsoft confirmed that 1.5 million handsets running Windows Phone 7 (WP7) have been sold by its manufacturer partners in the six weeks since launch although this is based on sales to operators and retail channel partners, rather than to end users.

The figures come after speculation that Microsoft was remaining tight-lipped on sales because the numbers were poor, following reports that supplies were limited in some markets. Early in November 2010, Taiwanese publication DigiTimes reported that demand from consumers was outstripping supply, although this was “largely due to limited initial shipments” as manufacturers took a cautious approach with the unproven platform.

Last week, advertising network Chitika said that for every WP7 impression it sees, there are 110 Android impressions and 172 iPhone impressions, which it said was “relatively stable, with very little significant market share growth in WP7.” The company has managed to generate some traction among the app developer community, with 4,000 products now available for the platform.

China Mobile is the leading 3G provider

China Mobile, China Unicom and China Telecom each had more than 10 million 3G subscribers at the end of October 2010. According to the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT), the total number of 3G service subscribers reached 38.64 million at the end of October, up 10.4% month-on-month, and up 295.7% year-on-year.

China Mobile is so far leading with a 43.9% share of the 3G market by subscribers.