Do Android Tablets Stay in a Drawer? ⇥ thenextweb.com

Chitika released an update to their US/Canada tablet usage statistics yesterday:

Since Chitika Insights’ last study on the tablet market, Apple iPad users’ share of U.S. and Canadian tablet Web traffic has increased by nearly two percentage points, from 82.4% in May 2013, to 84.3% in June 2013 – now the iPad’s highest share since the beginning of 2013.

Tim Cook referenced this on the conference call yesterday when asked about the market share of iPads vs. Android tablets.

Then this, today, from Harrison Weber of The Next Web:

Today at a press event hosted by Android and Chrome chief Sundar Pichai, Google revealed that there have been 70 million Android tablet activations to date. Google also detailed that, in the first half of 2013, so far one in every two tablets sold globally is based on Android.

Something doesn’t add up if half of all tablets sold globally in 2013 are running Android, yet Chitika’s data shows an overwhelming lead for the iPad. Chitika’s methodology¹ might preclude browsers with ad blockers, and only represents Canadian and American web traffic.

It would therefore be pertinent to cross-check this data against another browser stats site — Net Applications, for example.² Last month, the iPad recorded 34% of worldwide mobile web traffic, compared to 15% for Android. While that’s not as striking as Chitika’s data, keep in mind that the Android traffic also includes phones and, judging by their worldwide market share, I’d suspect smartphone account for almost all of that.

All of this comes on the same day that Google launched a new Nexus 7, which is a hair lighter than the older model, making it a less-ideal paperweight.

I’m kidding. That’s a pretty bitchin’ display.