Mobile web browsing on smartphones and tablets now accounts for 20 percent of all web traffic in the United States and Canada, according to research from online advertising network Chitika, obtained by AllThingsD Friday.
Breaking web traffic down by device type, traditional PCs, including desktops and laptops, account for 79.8 percent. Smartphones, on the market much longer than the current crop of tablets, represent 14.6 percent, and tablets take 5.6 percent.
For its part, Apple is represented strongly in Chitika’s measured mobile traffic, with the iPad accounting for over 95 percent of all tablet web traffic and the iPhone representing 72 percent of smartphone web traffic.
On the desktop and laptop side, 85 percent of web traffic is generated by Windows-based computers, compared to 13 percent coming from Macs.
Other findings of note revealed by the report: the relatively new but highly-watched Windows Phone is catching up quickly with the struggling Blackberry platform, with the much younger OS now accounting for a third as much traffic as RIM’s once dominant devices.
Also, tablet and smartphone web usage tends to peak in evening hours and on weekends, underscoring the notion that mobile devices are used heavily during leisure time while traditional desktops and laptops remain dominant, for now, during the average work day.
[Teaser graphic blackboard via Shutterstock]