Chitika Insights measured tablet web traffic during the week of January 19 to 25 in the US and Canada and the iPad had by far the highest usage at 81% with the Kindle Fire at 7.7%. The bar chart and the line graph covering the December and January timeframe compared to IDCs estimate for tablet shipments show the much greater usage of Apple’s iPad vs. other tablets.
Due to the heavier than normal sales of Amazon’s Kindle for presents during the holidays the iPad’s share of web tablet traffic took a noticeable dip from just before to about a week after Christmas. However also notice that the iPad’s share has trended down from about 88% at the beginning of December to 80% at the end of January.
Source: Chitika Insights, January 2013
The following table contains IDC’s estimates for tablet shipments for the past five quarters. Apple’s market share has declined substantially from 51.6% and 67.8% in the December 2011 and March 2012 quarters respectively to 43.6% in the December 2012 quarter. A combination of Samsung and Amazon have taken the most share. It will be interesting to see if Apple can rebound in the March quarter similar to last year.
There are a couple of thoughts to keep in mind when comparing the IDC numbers to the Chitika results. IDC is estimating shipments which includes units that have not or may not be sold. Also the iPad Mini was in short supply during the holiday season and had a 1-3 day lead time until a few days ago on Apple’s website which negatively effected Apple’s shipments. It is also interesting to see that Samsung had an estimated 15% share in the December quarter but only had a 3.9% share in Chitika’s numbers. This is probably due to Chitika only analyzing US and Canada traffic and IDC being worldwide estimates.
| Market share | 4Q 2011 |
1Q 2012 |
2Q 2012 |
3Q 2012 |
4Q 2012 |
| Apple | 51.6% |
67.8% |
68.2% |
46.6% |
43.6% |
| Samsung | 7.3% |
6.9% |
9.6% |
15.1% |
15.1% |
| Amazon | 15.9% |
4.1% |
5.0% |
8.3% |
11.5% |
| ASUS | 2.0% |
NA |
3.4% |
7.8% |
5.8% |
| Barnes & Noble | 4.6% |
NA |
NA |
0.7% |
1.9% |
| Acer | NA |
NA |
1.5% |
NA |
NA |
| Other | 18.5% |
21.2% |
12.3% |
21.6% |
22.0% |
| Total | 100.0% |
100.0% |
100.0% |
100.0% |
100.0% |
Source: IDC
One last thought is that LinkedIn is the latest company to give its employees iPads. Last week LinkedIn’s CEO, Jeff Weiner, announced that its approximately 3,500 employees would be getting iPad Mini’s. Along with Staples saying that it will be selling Apple products these are indications that sales to businesses should take on more importance for Apple.
Disclosure: My family and I own Apple shares.
