To quantify this study, Chitika Insights analyzed a sample of iPhone impressions, made up of hundreds of millions of impressions within the Chitika Ad network. We were able to discern which carrier each unique impression was coming from and used this data to construct a distribution of internet iPhone traffic by carrier. The tables below highlight the findings:

Although each iPhone in our sample is registered with a mobile carrier, we saw the largest source of traffic was actually coming from Wi-Fi networks outside of the carrier, most likely attributed to the rise in “mobile hotspots” and use of Wi-Fi on personal home and business networks, taking up 41.78% of the share. This may come as a relief for mobile carriers who are desperately looking for ways to offload excess data traffic in order to maintain the speed and integrity of their networks.

AT&T grabs the largest share of mobile carrier iPhone traffic with 39.43% of all iPhone impressions passing through the carrier’s network, followed by Verizon with 14.62% of share and Sprint with 4.18% of traffic running through their networks respectively.

To further analyze iPhone web traffic share among mobile carriers, Chitika Insights conducted an additional investigation to determine the share of iPhone web traffic relative to the particular carriers that offer the iPhone. Compared to Verizon and Sprint, AT&T still represents the majority of iPhone traffic seen on cellular networks, with 67.72% of traffic. Verizon is the 2nd largest carrier by iPhone web use with roughly 25% of iPhone traffic, and Sprint brings up the rear with 7.17% of iPhone web use in cellular networks.

We believe we will continue to see substantial growth in mobile web traffic for Apple as well as competing manufactures in the months and years to come. In fact, based on analytics from StatCounter, users accessing the web via mobile devices have almost doubled every year since 2009. With more users turning to mobile phones to access the internet, we are also likely to see more focus placed on mobile ad platforms in 2012 and beyond. We’ll continue to monitor these trends on our network and report back with the latest data we are seeing.

Fans of the New York Giants and the New England Patriots have all made their plans for the grand finale. Some super fans have even already started arriving Indianapolis to give full support for their team.

While the players enjoy being the center of attention at Indianapolis and prepare for February 5th, Chitika Insights conducted a study to compare the popularity of the final quarterbacks, Eli Manning and Tom Brady, in online traffic over the course of pre-Super Bowl week.

In order to take an in-depth look at their popularity, our proprietary study isolated their names, surnames, as well as their respective teams in the search queries among hundreds of millions of impressions between January 24th and January 31st.

As you can see from the graph above, although Tom Brady keeps his popularity in Massachusetts by getting 56% of the traffic, overall he loses out to Eli Manning who holds 61% of web traffic interest. In the Giants’ home state of NY, the level of interest for Manning on the web increases to 73%.

Eli Manning’s popularity in web traffic might be related to his performance in the 2008 Super Bowl.

Four years ago, Manning led the New York Giants to beat the undefeated Patriots and win the Super Bowl. Football fans might become more interested in Manning as they remember his performance in the 2008 game just before the next round of the epic face off.

The Super Bowl holds great uncertainty and there are sure to be a lot of unforgettable moments. Inevitably, web traffic interest will be abuzz after the game. Stay tuned to Chitika Insights for the updated results.

But does a shift in location or browsing method mean a shift in priorities? Chitika Insights took a look at what was on people’s minds recently. To answer this question, we took a sample of hundreds of thousands of impressions taken from our network over the past week, and analyzed them to see what the most searched-for queries were – and how that differed between PC users, tablet users, and phone users.

The answer? In many ways, it didn’t. Regardless of where traffic was coming from, there were a few things that held people’s interest across the board. Some topics ranked high in the lists, regardless of platform. Looking for a calculator, searching for coupons, and – with Chinese New Year falling this week – searches related to the holiday or to the Chinese zodiac all figured in the top fifteen most frequent searches for all three categories.

There were a few things, however, that stood out – searches that figured far more prevalently in one category than another, and gave some insight into how people are using their devices. Tablet users were far more frequently searching for recipes and cooking tips than users of smartphones or PCs, highlighting the convenience of an easily mobile not-quite-computer computer during everyday chores. Smartphone and tablet users both searched frequently (search #13 on tablets and search #8 on phones) for answers in the popular mobile game 7 Little Words. Queries for answers for Words With Friends were not far behind – something to keep in mind, perhaps, next time you are being soundly trounced in a match. And PC users? Well, their #2 query on the list was for an iPod touch. Possibly, they are feeling left out of the mobile game.

With tablet users, phone users, and PC users having somewhat different behaviors in terms of their search patterns, search engine marketers would do well to understand the user base for their particular site. Knowing the browsing patterns of internet users can help developers optimize accordingly. Chitika Insights will continue to keep an eye on the search engine industry and emerging online trends, helping publishers bring the most relevant content to their audience.

As football fans become more focused and interested in the league as we approach the end of the season, Chitika Insights conducted a research study to investigate the popularity of the quarterbacks who played in the AFC and NFC Championship Games: Tom Brady of The New England Patriots, Eli Manning of the New York Giants, Joe Flacco of the Baltimore Ravens and Alex Smith of The San Francisco 49ers.

The data collected for the study was taken between January 19th and January 24th covering a sample of hundreds of millions of impressions seen on our network. In order to quantify the level of interest seen for each player, we isolated players first and surnames as well as team in the query. We also logged the location of each query in order to get a better understanding of the regional interest for the players by state. The graphs below show the level of interest for each player, as it relates to web traffic, broken down by state (a), and overall interest (b).

As you can see from the graph above, Eli Manning leads in popularity with 45% of interest among the group. Second place goes to Tom Brady, who holds 27% of web traffic interest. The reason Manning and Brady have made it to the top could be related to their NFC and AFC championship wins, the team’s inherent rivalry, and the controversial ending of their last Super Bowl game. While the 49ers’ Smith follows the Super Bowl bound Quarterbacks closely, we see a relatively low interest for Joe Flacco. Also, when we analyze interest by state, each of the quarterbacks was most popular in their home state, except for Flacco in Maryland, where Brady takes the lead.

With the Super Bowl just two weeks away, the web is sure to be buzzing with interest in the AFC and NFC Championship Quarterbacks, but who will capture the most traffic? Check back with Chitika Insights just after the Super Bowl for results on the Manning vs. Brady faceoff, on the field and on the web.

Chitika Insights has been covering Apple from a market perspective for over three years. Over the past year, we have written several articles detailing the tablet and mobile market, including Apple’s products. Here are a couple of key findings we have found from our research this year and how it relates to Apple’s performance:

iPad Crushing the Field in the Tablet Market

At Chitika, we believe that one of the main reasons driving such optimistic analyst expectations may be Apple’s success in the tablet market. During the 2011 fiscal year, Apple sold 32 million iPads. During Q3 2011, the first full quarter of iPad sales, Apple sold 9.25 million iPads, a 183% increase in year on year sales. Conservative estimates have projected the Apple iPad to sell 48 million units during the calendar year of 2012. The iPad has even been anticipated to continue to sustain its market leader position over the tablet market until 2015, when tablet computers will be selling 60% as many units as PCs, according to Forrester and Gartner research. Within the Chitika network, we can directly observe the iPad exhibiting its dominance since it generates approximately 15% of all mobile traffic (which includes mobile as well as tablet ad impressions). In fact, other popular tablets such as the Kindle Fire or the BlackBerry PlayBook each generate less than 2.5 imps per 100 iPad ad impressions, respectively (see the graph below).

iOS Losing Market Dominance

Apple has had great successes in the tablet market, but one potential place for improvement for 2012 is iOS’s waning share of mobile traffic. This month, just after the end of the holiday season, marked the second month in a row in which the Chitika network observed Android surpassing iOS in total web use (51.7% vs. 46.9% in our network – which includes tablet and mobile devices). Compared to Apple’s judiciously managed supply chain, Google’s open standards have allowed Android to not only appear on a wide array of devices, but establish a presence across major cellphone providers. Additionally, the appearance of Android devices at multiple price points allows the OS under-cut Apple significantly while appealing to a broader range of consumers. Despite this, Apple’s strong performances in both the smartphone and tablet markets imply strong sales performance as we move into 2012.

What’s next for Apple?

According to three people familiar with the product, the iPad 3 is expected to become available to consumers in March 2012. The latest incarnation of the iPad will run on a quad-core processor, work with next-generation wireless networks, and use a new and improved high-definition screen. Apple has also undertaken a strategy of reinventing its product base with the introduction of iBooks 2, a platform designed to compete with the textbook industry by offering digital products at a lower price point, increasing their accessibility. Selling over 350,000 textbooks in the first three days, the program is already enormously successful, and will likely drive iPad sales in the future. Although details have yet to emerge surrounding the upcoming iPhone 5, if past history is any indication of future performance, the iPhone 5 will be a blockbuster.

Stay tuned for future coverage of Apple and its role in the tech world coming out of Chitika Insights as we continue to report on trends in the mobile device industry.

Most information on any topic of interest is now available online, just a click away. Web search has allowed internet users to access information with an unprecedented level of ease and speed and search engines are now dealing with billions of queries daily.

Chitika Insights has previously conducted a study to take an in depth look at the search habits we see on our extensive network and how they differentiate between search engines. Our new study is a follow-up to see if there have been any changes over the last months as it relates to habits across search engines. The goal of the study was to find the average number of words in a search query across the five most popular search engines in the US: Google, Bing Yahoo, Ask, and AOL. The study covered a sample of hundreds of millions of impressions, taken between January 9th and January 12th. In order to determine the number of words per query we looked at the number of spaces in each search and then added one to simulate an actual query. The graph below shows the average number of words per query by search engine.

As you can see above, Ask.com has the most verbose user base with 4.81 words per query on average, mimicking the same trend in our previous study. As we mentioned before, the main reason for the longer queries of Ask users might be explained with the original designation of the search engine. The main purpose of the engine was to provide answers for queries in “natural language”. Most likely, Ask users still tend to write their queries in their longer, natural form.

On the other hand, the most concise users in the search industry can be found on AOL.com, again following the same trend from our previous study. One reason for the succinct queries seen by AOL users may be related with the instant internal and external searching feature. AOL Search provides internal and external results at the same time to its subscribers, which covers most of its traffic. Users might become less verbose and more specific as their intent leans toward internal searches, which in turn could be the reason for their shorter queries. If this is the case, a possible decrease is expected for Google’s average number of words per query as users start using “Search plus Your World” feature, making queries more targeted.

Stay tuned to Chitika Insights for future reports on changes in the search behaviors as new features such as “Search Plus Your World,” continue to emerge, promoting a more targeted and relevant search experience.