Despite the influx of new tablet devices this year, there's little doubt that the iPad still dominates the category. Even so, data from research firm IDC showed the Apple tablet losing ground
in the fourth quarter, slipping to 73% market share from 93% a year ago. Taking a big chunk out of the iPad's huge lead was Samsung's Galaxy-powered Tab, which ended the year in second place with 17%
share.
Inroads made by the Galaxy Tab are also reflected in the latest monthly metrics released by mobile ad network Mojiva. They showed that the number of unique Tab users on the
network has grown 20-fold in the first two months of the year, hitting 800,000 in February.
That's not far below the 1.1 million unique visitors coming from the iPad. (Samsung also launched a
pair of new versions of the Tab yesterday, which it boasts are the "world's thinnest tablets" and come in a just a tad thinner than the latest iPad.)
Among the factors contributing to the
surge in Tab users: a big marketing push behind the device in advance of the iPad 2 launch and its price dropping to as low as $199 with a one-year contract from Verizon Wireless. The iPad's entry
price is $499. Overall, Android also accounts for 54% of unique users on the Mojiva network compared to 35% for Apple's iOS platform.
Perhaps more interesting is that ads on the Galaxy Tab are
showing a higher click-through rate than on the iPad: a rate of .60 versus .20 for the Apple device. But neither rate is all that impressive.
Among mobile operating systems, Research in
Motion's BlackBerry OS had the highest click-through rate, at 1.3%. RIM is launching its own entry in the tablet race -- the Playbook -- next month for $499.
In February, Mojiva totaled 84.3
million unique users, an 8% monthly gain. Valentine's Day proved to be a traffic driver last month, with unique users jumping 25% between Feb. 9 and 14. During that period, people also clicked on ads
at a higher rate.