Image via Shutterstock
While reports on the surging popularity of tablet computers over traditional desktop and laptop models would have you believe that these slates are fast becoming our go-to computing devices, figures from StatCounter reveal that usage isn’t what you might expect.
“The perception is that tablets are proliferating and replacing traditional PC and laptop machines so we developed our research platform to isolate tablet usage stats,” explains Aodhan Cullen, CEO of StatCounter, an independent web analytics firm.
“In reality, we found that tablet internet usage globally at less than 5pc is still relatively small compared to desktop and mobile,” he added.
StatCounter’s research arm, StatCounter Global Stats, reports that tablet internet usage worldwide in November 2013 was just 4.8pc – far behind the 19.1pc coming from mobile and the dominant force of desktop clocking 76.1pc.
Among tablet usage, the iPad is the most popular device, with Apple accounting for 74.5pc of this traffic. Samsung comes a distant second at 10.85pc, but this is an improvement on 8pc in the same period last year.
“Samsung is in a distant second place in global terms, although a challenge to the Cupertino company’s lead cannot be ruled out given Samsung’s success in the smartphone arena,” said Cullen.
In Ireland, tablet internet usage is above the global average at 8.4pc, while desktop streaks ahead with 75.4pc and mobile takes 15.8pc. Apple remains the dominant force for tablets, though, accounting for 81.7pc ahead of Samsung’s 7.3pc.
This pattern is similarly repeated in figures from the UK, though in the US Amazon sneaks ahead of Samsung with 7.4pc of the pie compared to Apple’s 80.3pc and Samsung’s 4.2pc.
Tablet user image via Shutterstock
