iPad market share seems to fall after Christmas, still dominant

The iPad's share of the tablet market seems to have shrunk markedly this Christmas -- but its dominance of the industry is still embarrassing for its competitors.

Web traffic measured by mobile ad network Chitika shows that nearly 79 per cent of tablet browsing on the two days after Christmas was done on Apple products, but that's down a significant 7 per cent from before Santa arrived.

The big winners this Chrimbo were the Kindle Fire range, up by 3 per cent to over 7 per cent of tablet browsers, with the Samsung Galaxy Tabs (both 7- and 10-inch versions) racking up over 4 per cent, up more than 1 per cent from before the holidays.

Google's Nexus slates made virtually no impression at all -- just 2 per cent of browsers, nearly doubling from before Christmas -- despite being solid-gold bargains.

The poor old Microsoft Surface proved a massive flop, not even scraping half a per cent of Web traffic. Even the BlackBerry PlayBook earned more than that, although it fell very slightly over the period measured.

So on this one measure, the iPad is still ten times more popular than its nearest competitor, despite losing nearly a tenth of its market share. With rock-bottom prices from Android tabs like the Kindle Fire HD and Nexus 7, I would have expected the tablet market to have evened up much more than it has.

This is only one set of data, however, and we won't know whether Android tablets have really made any impression until we see concrete sales figures. It's possible that iPad users are much more inclined to visit websites that display Chitika's ads, for whatever reason, than people who own other brands of tablet. The data was also for the US and Canada only, so the story may be somewhat different here in the UK.

Chitika also measured the popularity of different phones, with the iPhone 5 way out in front of Samsung's Galaxy S3 and Galaxy Note 2. Apple's latest phone picked up over 8 per cent of the North American market, gaining over 1 per cent from Christmas Day onwards.

I picked the Nexus 7 as my product of 2012, because it was finally a brilliant alternative to the iPad, with great specs and a much lower price. It seems no one listened to me. I won't take it personally.

Did you get an Android tablet for Christmas? What do you make of it? Chalk up your slate experiences in the comments below, or over on our touch-friendly Facebook page.