Chitika: iPad at 81% tablet web share in North America, Kindle Fire grabs 7.7%, and Galaxy line takes 3.9%

Apple’s iPad has entered 2013 dominating once again, owning over four-fifths of Web traffic in January for the US and Canada. Rounding out the top three were Amazon’s Kindle Fire at 7.7 percent and Samsung’s line of Galaxy tablets at 3.9 percent.

The latest figures come from Chitika Insights, which says it surveyed a sample of hundreds of millions of impressions from its advertising network between January 19 and January 27, 2013. The results paint a very one-side market of tablets, at least when it comes to Web browsing:

Chitika recently reported iPad’s Web usage share fell dramatically over the holidays as competition from Amazon, Samsung, Google, and Microsoft moved in. It would appear Apple’s tablet line has recovered slightly to 81 percent, but it’s still down a notable 5 percentage points from the 86 percent Web share it held just a couple of months ago.

At the time, we noted the Apple iPad would likely decline in traffic simply because it has such a large Web share already, but the drop was still significant. A steady loss is to be expected as more and more tablets, especially significantly cheaper ones, flood the market. Yet as you can see, the holiday dip was a temporary one (data from December 1 to January 27):

Apple aside, it would appear Amazon’s tablet is the biggest winner, and it’s not only at Apple’s expense. During the holidays, the company’s device gained over 3 percentage points, and we now see that wasn’t just a blip due to new owners of the Kindle Fire using their tablets more: the device has grabbed another 0.2 percentage points since.

Over the coming months, we’ll be watching to see if Amazon and Samsung will continue to chip away at Apple’s Web share in North America. At the same time, Google’s Nexus tablets (at a measly 1.4 percent) and Microsoft’s Surface line (at just 0.4 percent) will likely also grow their Web presence. If you’re a developer looking to keep your site working on tablets, it soon won’t be enough to just be iPad-compatible.

Image credit: AFP/Getty Images