June Tablet Update: iPad Usage Share Surpasses 84%
Since Chitika Insights' last study on the tablet market, Apple iPad users' share of U.S. and Canadian tablet Web traffic has increased by nearly two percentage points, from 82.4% in May 2013, to 84.3% in June 2013 - now the iPad's highest share since the beginning of 2013.
Context & Ripple Effects
Chitika Insights' monthly tracker has charted a long erosion of the iPad's grip on tablet web browsing: from the 94.64% share Chitika measured in May 2012 and the near-total dominance other reports put at 98% that fall, down to 82.4% by May 2013 as Android tablets shipped in volume — Strategy Analytics had Apple at just over 68% of the 24.9M tablets sold in Q2 2012. June's reading of 84.3% is therefore the first meaningful reversal in that series and the iPad's highest share since the beginning of 2013.
The story traveled unusually widely for an ad-network dataset — pickups included Business Insider, Forbes, Computerworld, AppleInsider, Tech.pinions and Benedict Evans — because it speaks to a gap the industry has been arguing about all year: whether Android's unit-share gains are converting into actual usage.
First-order effects
- Advertisers buying through Chitika's network face a U.S./Canadian tablet audience that grew more iPad-concentrated month-over-month, raising the effective value of iOS-targeted tablet inventory relative to Android.
Second-order effects
- Publishers and app makers sizing their tablet efforts see the usage-versus-shipments gap widen again: Android tablets may sell well, but they are not generating proportional web engagement, which pressures Android tablet developer economics and ad rates.
Third-order effects
- If the pattern holds, the tablet market settles into a split scorecard — one battle over unit share, another over engagement share — forcing analysts and investors to track both rather than treating shipments as a proxy for platform strength.
The trend: Tablet competition is bifurcating into a unit-share contest, where Android vendors press Apple hardest, and an engagement-share contest, where the iPad's lead has so far proved stickier than its declining shipment numbers implied.