• by Mark Walsh  @markfwal, December 20, 2011

Amazon’s announcement last week that it was selling the Kindle Fire at a rate of 1 million units a week drew widespread publicity. But how does the Amazon tablet shape up as an advertising platform? According to new data from Millennial Media, ad impressions generated by the Kindle Fire have increased at an average daily rate of 19% across apps and the mobile Web.

“We’re not just seeing millions of impressions, we’re seeing a monthly run rate of hundreds of millions of impressions,” the mobile ad network stated in its monthly Mobile Mix report. The study covered only the first two weeks of the Kindle Fire’s release in mid-November. It also noted the early growth rate of Kindle Fire impressions so far slightly outpaced that of the iPad when it was launched in early 2010.

That’s partly because the Amazon device was released into a more mature tablet market, its $199 price tag, and the range of digital entertainment offered through the Kindle Fire. Reflecting its dominance of the tablet market, the iPad typically accounts for the lion’s share of tablet impressions on Millennial’s network. Still, connected devices as a whole are responsible for only 16% of all mobile impressions, according to the latest report.

Smartphones drive the vast majority (70%) of impressions, with feature phones contributing 14%. Across both smartphones and connected devices, Android continued to lead the way, generating 50% of impressions, followed by Apple’s iOS, with 30%, and BlackBerry, 17%. Growing uptake of the Android-based Kindle Fire should help the Google mobile operating system bolster its strength across all devices.

JP Morgan has projected Amazon will sell 5 million of the Amazon tablets in the fourth quarter and 20 million in 2012.

Among individual phone models, the iPhone remained the top device on the Millennial network, with 13.5% share of impressions, followed by the BlackBerry Curve (6%), Motorola Droid (5%), HTC Evo (3%), and LG Optimus (3%). Android represented 14 of the top handsets among the top 20 overall, with a combined impressions share of 29%.

Apple in November again also ranked as the top manufacturer, with all of its devices accounting for 25.6% of impressions. Samsung was second, with 17.5%, followed by BlackBerry-maker Research in Motion (14.5%), HTC (12.6%0, and Motorola (10%).