iPad Loses Web Share After Christmas as Consumers Test Out Android Tablets

Apple's iPad has been an unrivaled success thus far, which isn't too surprising considering it's the device that more or less shaped the tablet market as we know it today. There are many ways to measure the iPad's success, but lately browsing data has been highlighted as a method of measuring mobile device performance.

In this area, the iPad typically dominates — it accounted for 98.1 percent of 29.5 million unique impressions taken from a sample of over 1,200 sites in a recent study from Onswipe, for example.

However, according to recent data released by Chitika Insights, the research arm of the Chitika Ad network, iPad Web usage has fallen by a significant percentage since December 25 in the U.S. and Canada. Based on sample data collected between December 1 and December 27, the iPad's Web usage share fell by 7.1 percent after Christmas day to 78.9 percent from 86 percent.


Image via www.apple.com

Apparently, the tablets that claimed the iPad's lost Web usage share were largely the Kindle Fire, Samsung Galaxy, and Google Nexus tablets, which gained 3.03, 1.38 and 0.92 percent, respectively. Of course, Amazon's Kindle Fire tablets feature very competitive pricing, as with Google's Nexus tablets, so it's not too surprising to see that they were popular gifts this holiday season.

Meanwhile, Microsoft's Surface tablet even saw a post-Christmas increase in Web usage, up by 0.17 percent.

On the phone front, the iPhone 5 managed an increase in Web traffic share, rising 1.11 percent to 8.27 percent, while the Samsung Galaxy S III managed an even one percent increase to 4.29 percent.

The Chitika report doesn't expect the iPad's share to stay below 80 percent, though, stating that "despite the gains by competitors, we expect that the iPad’s share of tablet traffic will return to the 80 percent range, albeit lower than pre-holiday levels as users return from vacation and browse with their new devices less frequently."

Of course, it's possible the iPad's dip in Web traffic has something to do with iPad owners taking a break from Web shopping. A recent IBM retail analytics report found that the iPad accounted for 10 percent of all online holiday shopping, or 88.3 percent of all tablet shopping traffic.