Last week Mashable published an article on comScore’s latest analysis of the U.S. mobile market, highlighting the fact that Android handset penetration has grown significantly in the period from February to May 2010, while all other major operating systems experienced a drop in their market share.

Here’s a quick overview of the stats.

The Google powered OS is the only one of the bunch that has shown significant growth in the period under analysis. comScore stats on the UK / European market aren’t yet released but we can expect to see a similar pattern emerging.
As a result we’ve responded by updating our Android SDK. This means that it is now even easier to develop great bespoke rich media ad formats for the broadest possible smartphone base including iPhone, Blackberry etc.
Moreover, last month we announced the launch of our Engagement Platform to develop our own mobile advertising proposition in line with the advances in handset technology, mobile internet and application usage patterns.

The Engagement Platform is driving mobile advertising forward by delivering deep engagement tools, techniques and rich media ad formats that take advantage of the very thing that is driving this market forward, ie, smartphone technology. More than this when you couple the Engagement Platform with premium mobile inventory from great brands such as Vodafone, Shazam, The Guardian and Virgin Mobile and the more recently announced Global Radio and Vouchercloud, the mobile advertising opportunity is as potent, if not more so, than any other channel.
Specifically, the Engagement Platform includes:

• New software developer kits (SDKs) so that advertisers can take full advantage of 4th Screen’s advanced mobile ad formats such as the iSlide, video, intersticials, location, augmented reality and overlays - Now available on iPhone, iPod Touch and Android devices
• A separate innovation hub to develop bespoke formats for individual applications and publishers
• Advanced data mining to offer real time campaign planning and segmentation as well as ongoing artificial intelligence to dynamically optimise campaign performance
• Engagement research and reporting as part of integrated mobile campaigns to show the value of mobile beyond the click
• A full suite of campaign planning tools so that advertisers and agencies can plan and create highly targeted campaigns based on audience profiles, location and time for example
• Access to 4th Screen’s premium global publisher network which includes a global inventory of premium publishers in Europe, North America, South Africa and Asia

So, if the future of smartphone technology is increasingly based on a much wider choice of handsets, then brands and agencies need to really get to grips with how engagement can work as a central component of any campaign and deliver advertising that has relevancy and user experience at its core, going well beyond the static banner/ blind ad-network model.