Chitika Insights’ last report on the Microsoft Surface observed steady, moderate usage share growth for the tablet family within North America. Since that time, retailers like eBay and Best Buy unveiled temporary discounts on the Surface RT model, and our most recent usage statistics point to a substantial usage share boost for the tablet around the sale dates. This recent growth has resulted in Microsoft Surface Web usage surpassing that of Barnes and Noble’s Nook, making it the fifth-largest tablet traffic source in North America behind Apple, Amazon, Samsung, and Google.
This past holiday season represented the cap on yet another banner year for the sales of mobile devices, and subsequent usage figures exemplify this flurry of activity. After examining changes in North American Web traffic share, we found that Amazon and Microsoft had the most promising holiday seasons within the tablet marketplace while Apple was the only manufacturer to gain usage share amongst all major smartphone competitors.
To provide a longer-term view of iOS version distribution over time, Chitika Insights examined a full year of iOS version distribution.
In Chitika Insights’ previous report on the Microsoft Surface RT, data pointed to a substantial growth in the device’s North American usage share following a price decrease in mid-July. In this latest analysis, Chitika Insights found that usage of Microsoft’s latest tablet device, the Surface 2, experienced some notable growth in the month following its North American release on October 22, 2013. Additionally, Surface tablet usage share as a whole continued to rise from October through November.
For website owners looking to monetize their online presence, generating traffic to a particular webpage is the often the first step towards attaining that goal. Following that and other initial hurdles towards attracting a growing online audience come the nuanced aspects of improving ad click through rates (CTR) on each webpage. To quantify this issue, Chitika Insights examined ad click activity across the entire Chitika network, breaking the results down by referring domain (e.g. Google, within the site, an outside site, etc.)
Moto X was released in August 2013 and is largely regarded as the first new, flagship-type Motorola device since the company was acquired by Google in 2012. Subsequent growth in terms of Web usage has followed Moto X’s release, with a steady increase in Web traffic share over the month of October 2013. Chitika Insights also examined the share growth of Motorola smartphone Web traffic in North America, which also shows a steady increase in the Web usage share.
Five days following OS X Mavericks' public release, OS X Mavericks users were generating 11.8% of North American OS X Web traffic. This substantially surpasses the adoption rate of OS X Mountain Lion in the same time period, as Mavericks' predecessor took over a month to cross the 10% threshold.
iPad users still generate 81% of all tablet Web traffic within North America, and while this is a three percentage point share drop since Chitika Insights’ June 2013 study on the tablet market, share gains have been spread out across various manufacturers. Also in this latest tablet report, Chitika Insights sought to examine how usage of iPads and Android tablets varied by the time of day. Interestingly, despite the aggregate differences in usage volume, the hourly behavior of both respective sets of users is remarkably similar.
Apple’s launch of two new iPhone models on September 20, 2013 was the company’s latest salvo in the smartphone market. Initial domestic sales estimates for both the iPhone 5S and iPhone 5C have been positive, and based on the latest usage figures, the releases have already made a significant impact on the iPhone ecosystem.
