While you may see the same adverts inside the Facebook app no matter which smartphone you use, those ads are 1,790% more profitable on the iPhone than they are on Android-powered smartphones. That’s according to an analysis of over 200 billion Facebook ads from Nanigans, one of the biggest customers of Facebook ads.

That’s a massive difference in return on investment, and it makes you wonder why anyone would want to advertise on Android. Why would you spend money on Android ads when you could get a 1,170% greater ROI on iOS? It’s not like adverts on the iPhone cost significantly more, either.

TUAW reports that the average cost per thousand impressions (CPM) on Android is $4.87, while on iPhone it’s just 12¢ more at $4.99. Furthermore, advertisers typically make around 162% of the cash they spend on iOS ads, according to Nanigans’ data, while on Android they lose 10%.

These figures don’t give Android a great image for advertisers. In fact, Nanigans says it had to think twice about publishing this data.

“When I talked to Nanigans SVP Dan Slagen about the results, he was candid, telling me that the company was a little “on the fence” about publishing that data, knowing that it would be controversial,” reports VentureBeat’s John Koetsier. “Ultimately, however, that’s the data that the company was seeing, and the company decided to let the data speak.”

So why is advertising more profitable on the iPhone? Well, Slagen believes that it’s all because iPhone users averagely earn more and are willing to spend more than Android users. This is also why app developers are making significantly more in the App Store than they are on Google Play — despite more Android users worldwide.

• SourceVentureBeat
• ViaTUAW