Amazon, Samsung tablets inch up, but Apple's iPad still ahead by a mile
The launch of Apple's iPad mini appears to have slowed the rate at which competitors have been able to eat into the company's overwhelming lead in the tablet sector, according to a new study out Thursday, even as Amazon and Samsung tablets continue to carve out their own share.
The new figures from Chitika Insights illustrate tablet use for the North American market, based on an analysis of web traffic between Feb. 15 and Feb. 21. Chitika's report found that Apple's iPad devices held 80.5 percent of traffic share among all tablets, down slightly from last month's share of 81 percent.
The rate of decline in the iPad's share, though, dropped sharply from January to February. A Chitika report in January saw the iPad's web traffic share dipping by about six percent over the holiday period before recovering slightly. Speaking with Apple Insider, a Chitika spokesperson attributed the lower rate of decline at least in part to the popularity of the iPad mini.
No competing devices achieved double digit traffic share. Amazon's Kindle Fire line came in a distant second at eight percent traffic share, while Samsung's Galaxy line of tablets inched up to 4.2 percent. Share for Google's Nexus tablets declined 0.06 percent over the period. A generic "Other Android Tablets" category gained 0.39 percent.
The Chitika representative assured Apple Insider that, even though the share fluctuations are small, the firm compensates for possible sampling errors.
"Our network is very extensive," the representative explained, "with more than 250,000 websites. The sample that we take, the tens of millions of impressions, come from across industries: sports, automotive, and so on. If we see a change across our entire network, then we feel that that accounts for the possibility of sampling error. If we see it in just one area, then we take a closer look at that."
Chitika's web traffic figures are a far cry from industry research figures on tablet shipments, but that disparity, the Chitika spokesperson said, likely reflects the different usage patterns for different devices.
"We don't break this up by specific IP addresses. When you look at tablet share sales from analysts, and you see the iPad at 50 percent of the market, that does likely mean that iPad users are browsing more frequently with their devices than are other tablet owners."
The past several months have shown a slight but gradual downward trend in share for Apple's best-selling tablet. Asked whether one could extrapolate on the trend, which would see the iPad dropping to 75 percent share possibly over the summer, the representative noted that unforeseen product announcements have a way of interrupting trends. Rumors of a forthcoming iPad refresh could, then, cause a big spike in Apple's share of web traffic, and perhaps doubly so, given the indications that iPad users browse the web more often with their devices.
The new figures from Chitika Insights illustrate tablet use for the North American market, based on an analysis of web traffic between Feb. 15 and Feb. 21. Chitika's report found that Apple's iPad devices held 80.5 percent of traffic share among all tablets, down slightly from last month's share of 81 percent.
The rate of decline in the iPad's share, though, dropped sharply from January to February. A Chitika report in January saw the iPad's web traffic share dipping by about six percent over the holiday period before recovering slightly. Speaking with Apple Insider, a Chitika spokesperson attributed the lower rate of decline at least in part to the popularity of the iPad mini.
No competing devices achieved double digit traffic share. Amazon's Kindle Fire line came in a distant second at eight percent traffic share, while Samsung's Galaxy line of tablets inched up to 4.2 percent. Share for Google's Nexus tablets declined 0.06 percent over the period. A generic "Other Android Tablets" category gained 0.39 percent.
The Chitika representative assured Apple Insider that, even though the share fluctuations are small, the firm compensates for possible sampling errors.
"Our network is very extensive," the representative explained, "with more than 250,000 websites. The sample that we take, the tens of millions of impressions, come from across industries: sports, automotive, and so on. If we see a change across our entire network, then we feel that that accounts for the possibility of sampling error. If we see it in just one area, then we take a closer look at that."
Chitika's web traffic figures are a far cry from industry research figures on tablet shipments, but that disparity, the Chitika spokesperson said, likely reflects the different usage patterns for different devices.
"We don't break this up by specific IP addresses. When you look at tablet share sales from analysts, and you see the iPad at 50 percent of the market, that does likely mean that iPad users are browsing more frequently with their devices than are other tablet owners."
The past several months have shown a slight but gradual downward trend in share for Apple's best-selling tablet. Asked whether one could extrapolate on the trend, which would see the iPad dropping to 75 percent share possibly over the summer, the representative noted that unforeseen product announcements have a way of interrupting trends. Rumors of a forthcoming iPad refresh could, then, cause a big spike in Apple's share of web traffic, and perhaps doubly so, given the indications that iPad users browse the web more often with their devices.
Comments
"I would imagine that by this stage in the timeline of the events that have unfolded before us you have come to the inevitable conclusion that Apple is doomed!"
Apple iOS and Android market share will eventually flatten out as the mobile device industry matures. That is just the way the consumer product business works. Apple has an early lead but it is probably not sustainable. I predict it will end up exactly like Ford and Chevy in the auto industry with Microsoft being the Chrysler of the mobile market. That is why Apple needs to look at other industries to disrupt in order to stay on top with the 'next big thing'.
That's quite a lead. I think that anybody buying any other tablet besides an iPad is either totally insane or extremely cheap.
This chart reminds me of the chart in the other thread, the one where Android had a huge lead, in malware.
Quote:
Apple iOS and Android market share will eventually flatten out as the mobile device industry matures. That is just the way the consumer product business works. Apple has an early lead but it is probably not sustainable. I predict it will end up exactly like Ford and Chevy in the auto industry with Microsoft being the Chrysler of the mobile market. That is why Apple needs to look at other industries to disrupt in order to stay on top with the 'next big thing'.
iWatch is on the way! - The next big thing!
Remember when analysts/investors were shrieking about how Apple needs to release a smaller iPad, and concern-trolling about how cheaper iPads were going to take over the market?
Apple releases a smaller, cheaper iPad which has completely dominated the small tablet space, and sucked all the air out of the competition, seemingly solidifying iPad dominance for a long time to come and quelling this fear. So, how did the market respond to this near perfect execution? By finding other things to bitch about, like how the iPad mini is now hurting margins and selling more than the regular iPad, and by decimating the stock. Apple is supposed to magically increase margins while increasing sales, maintain quality while competing with the price of bargain bin products in the trash heap, etc. Paradoxes that are impossible to execute, and expected of no other company besides Apple.
It just goes to show how much weight these analysts have, and how much weight we should give the shrieking now about releasing a cheaper iPhone, as if Apple will be rewarded by doing so by these greedy pigs. JUST RELEASE A CHEAPER IPHONE AND THE STOCK WILL BOUNCE BACK UP! WE'LL REWARD YOU! No you won't, you fuckfaces. Apple did exactly what you wanted with the iPad and pulled it off brilliantly, yet you just shrugged and moved on to the next "Apple is doomed" scenario.
Which Power Ranger is that?
Obviously Apple is teetering on the edge of bankruptcy, despite these glowing reports. /s
How ruthlessly absurd!
Quote:
Originally Posted by mstone
Apple iOS and Android market share will eventually flatten out as the mobile device industry matures. That is just the way the consumer product business works. Apple has an early lead but it is probably not sustainable. I predict it will end up exactly like Ford and Chevy in the auto industry with Microsoft being the Chrysler of the mobile market. That is why Apple needs to look at other industries to disrupt in order to stay on top with the 'next big thing'.
Well if you look at how well a wide range of competitors with proprietary or broadly licensed platforms (PFS) competed against the iPod, you can't arrive at your conclusion. It was the opposite: after taking and holding the high end, Apple released cheaper iPods that rapidly decimated flash-based competitors.
Actually the reverse of what you predict happened: just five years after the iPod first appeared in 2001, everyone had stopped talking about its failed MP3 competitors and moved on talking about how the next big thing would interrupt... APPLE! It was smartphones that could play MP3s that were supposed to topple the iPod and Apple's music business.
Instead, it was the iPhone, Apple's iPod that could work as a phone (and a "breakthrough internet device"), that perpetuated the success of the iPod, and sent Apple on to much higher levels of success. Apple shook the smartphone industry into shambles and took the vast majority of its profits away, very rapidly.
And then by 2008-9 we started to hear about netbooks, and how this "next big thing" would disrupt.... APPLE!
Instead, it was the iPad, Apple's iOS-based tablet, that perpetuated the success of the iPhone and sent Apple on to even higher levels of success. Nobody talks about netbooks much anymore, and certainly nobody is selling any.
All the side distractions announced over the last few years, from Symbian Foundation to webOS to Bada to every version of Windows Mobile and then Windows Phone, Android Honeycomb tablets, Google TV, RIM PlayBook, etc ad naseum, have all dug their own graves of failure. Android is holding on as fragmented freeware crippled with malware issues. Nobody is profiting on it. That's bad news folks! Windows achieved dominance because MS, devs and hardware partners were all profiting greatly from its success. Nobody is doing well because of Android.
So please, more clearly articulate why Apple, the most profitable, most competent tech company with the most resources, is about to be challenged by a series of companies that have done nothing but fail without generating any new profits over and over, year after year.
People are wetting themselves about Glass and self-driving cars, as if Google is the only one doing any research in the area of wearables or navigation. Let's see Google actually release any product successfully first. So far, they are only good at giving things away at a loss. That's not how business works.
And look at Microsoft. If you think that company is doing well in consumer electronics or PCs or tablets or mobile, get back to me when your laughing gas wears off.
Apple has some large issues to solve going forward, but its problems look rather First World in a tech industry that is dying for scraps and covered with filthy flies. Every new product they come out with makes me think of a destitute woman in a ransacked country discovering in her poverty that she has a child on the way.
GREAT NEWS!!!!! Let's all talk about what she might name it, not that it is almost guaranteed to die in squalor, just like Buzz and PlayBook and Surface RT.
Then, lets look at some affluent person in switzerland who just opened their latest ski resort after a series of incredibly profitable ventures, and worry about how that person might end up getting malaria, because all these people in the third world are dying of it.
The tech industry is so incredibly ridiculous that the only way you can make a car analogy is by talking about all the failures without discussing Apple at all.
Pretty tough, though, when Chitika shows each model used and don't have to "guess" why one is higher than the other (unlike certain other analysts do).
Sorry, but with an error margin of a few percent, one can't say that the numbers are down.
Then AppleInsider is even more gullible than I thought.
There are two sources of error:
1. Random sample size error. For 1,000 samples, the error margin is something like +/- 3%. There's nothing you can do about that except collect a larger sample. Even with a huge sample (hundreds of thousands), the sampling error is still far greater than the 0.5% difference - so statistically, the two numbers are the same.
2. Error from sample composition. Ideally, the sample would be exactly representative of the population as a whole. In that case, only error #1 applies. But in the real world, that's never the case - almost any sample has some biases built in (classic example - at one time AT&T did a "random" sample by selecting numbers randomly from the phone book. Unfortunately, that left out all the people who didn't own phones, so the results were not representative).
You can't really correct for the second type of error, either. The only way to do it would be to have an even larger sample to verify whether the sample you selected is representative of the overall population - and how much they differ. If you knew how much your sample differed from the overall population, one could (in theory) correct, but you'd be doubling the random sample size error, so it's hard to come out ahead.
In the end, the results don't tell us much (except that iPad share AS MEASURED BY THEIR METHOD) hasn't changed significantly. Their attempts to rationalize it as meaning more than that are just plain silly.
Android tablets are flooding the market and they break easily so people just end up getting the iPad but keep their Android phones.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Slurpy
It just goes to show how much weight these analysts have, and how much weight we should give the shrieking now about releasing a cheaper iPhone, as if Apple will be rewarded by doing so by these greedy pigs. JUST RELEASE A CHEAPER IPHONE AND THE STOCK WILL BOUNCE BACK UP! WE'LL REWARD YOU! No you won't, you fuckfaces. Apple did exactly what you wanted with the iPad and pulled it off brilliantly, yet you just shrugged and moved on to the next "Apple is doomed" scenario.
You need to see a professional. WOW!
Quote:
Originally Posted by Vision33r
Amazon Kindle are just rentals. Cheapskates buy and use them then return them. Resale values of Kindle HD are abysmal.
Them rentals are trending higher in %!
Quote:
Originally Posted by Corrections
How ruthlessly absurd!
Well if you look at how well a wide range of competitors with proprietary or broadly licensed platforms (PFS) competed against the iPod, you can't arrive at your conclusion. It was the opposite: after taking and holding the high end, Apple released cheaper iPods that rapidly decimated flash-based competitors.
Actually the reverse of what you predict happened: just five years after the iPod first appeared in 2001, everyone had stopped talking about its failed MP3 competitors and moved on talking about how the next big thing would interrupt... APPLE! It was smartphones that could play MP3s that were supposed to topple the iPod and Apple's music business.
Instead, it was the iPhone, Apple's iPod that could work as a phone (and a "breakthrough internet device"), that perpetuated the success of the iPod, and sent Apple on to much higher levels of success. Apple shook the smartphone industry into shambles and took the vast majority of its profits away, very rapidly.
And then by 2008-9 we started to hear about netbooks, and how this "next big thing" would disrupt.... APPLE!
Instead, it was the iPad, Apple's iOS-based tablet, that perpetuated the success of the iPhone and sent Apple on to even higher levels of success. Nobody talks about netbooks much anymore, and certainly nobody is selling any.
All the side distractions announced over the last few years, from Symbian Foundation to webOS to Bada to every version of Windows Mobile and then Windows Phone, Android Honeycomb tablets, Google TV, RIM PlayBook, etc ad naseum, have all dug their own graves of failure. Android is holding on as fragmented freeware crippled with malware issues. Nobody is profiting on it. That's bad news folks! Windows achieved dominance because MS, devs and hardware partners were all profiting greatly from its success. Nobody is doing well because of Android.
So please, more clearly articulate why Apple, the most profitable, most competent tech company with the most resources, is about to be challenged by a series of companies that have done nothing but fail without generating any new profits over and over, year after year.
People are wetting themselves about Glass and self-driving cars, as if Google is the only one doing any research in the area of wearables or navigation. Let's see Google actually release any product successfully first. So far, they are only good at giving things away at a loss. That's not how business works.
And look at Microsoft. If you think that company is doing well in consumer electronics or PCs or tablets or mobile, get back to me when your laughing gas wears off.
Apple has some large issues to solve going forward, but its problems look rather First World in a tech industry that is dying for scraps and covered with filthy flies. Every new product they come out with makes me think of a destitute woman in a ransacked country discovering in her poverty that she has a child on the way.
GREAT NEWS!!!!! Let's all talk about what she might name it, not that it is almost guaranteed to die in squalor, just like Buzz and PlayBook and Surface RT.
Then, lets look at some affluent person in switzerland who just opened their latest ski resort after a series of incredibly profitable ventures, and worry about how that person might end up getting malaria, because all these people in the third world are dying of it.
The tech industry is so incredibly ridiculous that the only way you can make a car analogy is by talking about all the failures without discussing Apple at all.
Post of the fucking year, and I don't say that lightly.
I was speaking to a co-worker this morning, on why he has an android phone.
His answer: "Because its cheap and I really only use it for making calls"
I wonder how prevalent this view is. Very high in developing country but in developed countries like Australia it would be significant.
In my opinion if a smart phone is not being used as such, should they actually count as smart phones in the first place? So these millions of android activations each day are these Google's equivalent to Potemkin villages?