nokia-logo1According to BNET Blog, Nokia has lost its overall market share in the worldwide smartphone segment to Apple, based on browser calls for mobile ads.

According to numbers from mobile ad service vendor AdMob, Apple smartphones received 49 percent of ad traffic in May, compared with 32 percent for Nokia. Apple offers more apps and consumers are attracted towards iPhone than Nokia. In January, Nokia had a 43 percent share of AdMob’s market, and Apple was at 32 percent, roughly equivalent to Gartner’s Q1 numbers.

App developers couldn’t be happier with Apple’s frictionless system and huge customer base, which of course feeds a virtuous cycle of more apps for the App Store leading to more customers for Apple’s iPhone.

William Volk, CEO of entertainment and business apps vendor PlayScreen, said on a professional forum posting that:

Apple had the advantage of the years of experience with iTunes and their iPods PLUS their own acceptable billing solution and that has served them well.

PlayScreen makes apps for Android and the Symbian S60, and he is preparing over 25 apps for the Pre. Volk also said that:

other stores simply aren’t matching the ARPUs [average revenue per user] of the Apple App store.

In May iPhone OS and, Android, gained market share at the expense of every other mobile operating system. The numbers for U.S. market share in May are even more good: the iPhone OS represents 68 percent of browser requests, RIM is at 13%, Android at 7%, Windows at 6% and Palm’s WebOS at 3%.