Apple's iPad owns 88% of global tablet web traffic
There should be no doubt in anyone's mind that Apple's iPad is the biggest seller in the tablet space, but we have seen many iPad competitors come out over recent months, including Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1, Blackberry PlayBook, Amazon Kindle Fire, and many more.
Context & Ripple Effects
A month after AppleInsider measured the iPad at 97% of tablet web traffic, Royal Pingdom puts the figure at 88% — still overwhelming, but the first sign of erosion as Samsung's Galaxy Tab 10.1, RIM's PlayBook and Amazon's Kindle Fire reach users. The gap between the two readings matters more than either number: rival tablets are finally online in volume, just not yet browsing in volume.
The story's spread tracks a parallel retreat — VatorNews' pickup ran alongside word that Dell, HP and Acer are scaling back tablet manufacturing, so the traffic data lands just as several would-be challengers are deciding the market is not worth their assembly lines.
First-order effects
- Publishers, advertisers and web developers now have hard numbers justifying an iPad-first optimization strategy: nearly nine in ten tablet page views come from one device, making Android or PlayBook tablet layouts a rounding error for most sites.
- Samsung, RIM and Amazon can point to shelf presence, but none can yet claim meaningful engagement — their devices are being bought (or gifted) without becoming daily browsing tools.
Second-order effects
- Dell, HP and Acer's manufacturing pullback looks rational against this data: competing for single-digit traffic share against Apple's installed base means selling hardware into a usage vacuum, pushing remaining PC makers toward Windows 8 as their tablet answer.
- Amazon's Kindle Fire is positioned as the exception — priced as a content-consumption portal rather than a general-purpose browser, it sidesteps the web-traffic benchmark where Apple is untouchable.
Third-order effects
- If usage share stays this concentrated while unit share fragments, the tablet market splits structurally into a premium iOS tier that owns the open web and a discounted Android tier that lives inside vendor walled gardens — with advertisers' budgets following the traffic, not the shipments.
- Regulators and antitrust watchers gain a fresh dataset on platform dominance: an 88% traffic share invites the same scrutiny Apple has faced on mobile, especially as its board rebuilds under Art Levinson and Bob Iger.
The trend: Tablet competition is splitting into two different scoreboards — unit shipments, where rivals are gaining, and actual web usage, where Apple's lead is eroding slowly enough to keep the iPad the default target for publishers and developers.