Apple is scheduled to announce quarterly revenues this afternoon. All eyes will be on the number of iPhones sold but also on iPads and whether its tablet “slump” has been reversed. Analysts are expecting roughly 21 million iPad sales in the previous quarter.
Apple has dominated the North American tablet market since the company effectively created it with the iPad. The overwhelming majority of traffic from tablets continues to come from iPads. (Yesterday Microsoft announced a big gain in Surface Pro 3 sales.)
In a new report, however, ad network Chitika says that Samsung has made double-digit traffic gains in North America. The company’s market share data come from “tens of millions of U.S. and Canadian tablet-based online ad impressions” in January.
According to Chitika, the iPad is responsible for about 71 percent of tablet traffic. But Samsung has now jumped ahead of Amazon Kindle to claim second place with 11.5 percent. Collectively Android tablets generate nearly 28 percent of all North American tablet based internet traffic.
Aggressive discounting and holiday related sales were undoubtedly partly responsible for what appears to be a big sales jump in Samsung tablets. Existing iPad owners have not upgraded with the same frequency as smartphone users. And overall growth in the market has slowed except at the low end for less-expensive tablet offerings.
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