Apple iPad users are generating an increasingly larger portion of North American tablet-based Internet traffic, with July marking the third straight month of usage share gains. Most recently, iPad usage share rose from 84.3% in June 2013, to 84.9% in July 2013 – its highest mark since the beginning of 2013. Amazon’s Kindle Fire and Samsung’s Galaxy Tablet families remain in second and third place, with usage shares of 5.3% and 4.3%, respectively.
Apple iPad users are generating an increasingly larger portion of North American tablet-based Internet traffic, with July marking the third straight month of usage share gains. Most recently, iPad usage share rose from 84.3% in June 2013, to 84.9% in July 2013 – its highest mark since the beginning of 2013. Amazon’s Kindle Fire and Samsung’s Galaxy Tablet families remain in second and third place, with usage shares of 5.3% and 4.3%, respectively.
To determine the distribution of Web usage among tablet devices for the month of July 2013, Chitika Insights sampled tens of millions of U.S. and Canadian tablet online ad impressions running through the Chitika Ad Network. The data used within the most recent analysis were drawn across the time frame of July 15 to July 21, 2013, and data for previous months were collected from the Chitika Insights’ May and June tablet market share reports, respectively.
As seen in the graphs above, Apple’s iPad holds a usage share margin of almost 80% within North America. While analysts have pointed to Android tablet sales picking up globally, particularly on the back of “white box” tablet products in emerging markets, the most recent data sets point to this trend not resulting in a noticeable impact within the U.S. and Canada in terms of tablet usage. While tablet sales within North America are also distributed across manufacturers, the data point to iPad users behaving differently than their Android counterparts within the continent – continuing to drive the majority of tablet-based Web browsing. This was an argument both Apple executives Peter Oppenheimer and Tim Cook made on the company’s Q3 2013 earnings call in July, 2013.
The majority of the other players in the tablet market have a shown a month-over-month usage share decline, with the exception of Samsung Galaxy and Google Nexus Tablets. With Google having just released a new version of its flagship Nexus 7 tablet in August, it’s likely that its users will drive increased usage domestically as the tablet gets into the hands of consumers. Despite maintaining its second-place position, Amazon’s Kindle Fire also showed a month-over-month decline in Web usage. However, the online retailer recently cut prices on some of its current Kindle Fire models in a move likely pegged to the upcoming launch of new Kindle Fire HD devices. With both of these developments in mind, the fall season is looking to be a pivotal one in the tablet marketplace.
