Did the iPad Get the Holiday Blues?

If tablet ad impressions are to be believed, the holidays were not especially friendly to the iPad. According to research from ad network Chitika, the Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) tablet’s market share fell 7.14 percent during the month of December, while rival devices from Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN), Samsung (SSNLF.PK), and Google (NASDAQ:GOOG) gained a total of 5.5 percent.

But despite the drop, the iPad, including the iPad mini and older generations of the tablet, was still the runaway leader after accounting for 78.46 percent of all tablet traffic. Amazon’s Kindle Fire was next with 7.51 percent of impressions, up 3.03 percent.

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Samsung’s 7-inch and 10-inch Galaxy tablets together added 1.38 percent to account for 4.38 percent of the market, while Google’s Nexus 7 and Nexus 10 grew 0.92 percent to total 2.04 percent. Microsoft’s (NASDAQ:MSFT) Surface grew marginally, by 0.17 percent, to 0.4 percent and is now close to catching up to Research in Motion’s (NASDAQ:RIMM) now-defunct BlackBerry Playbook, which lost 0.02 percent to account for a 0.68 percent share.

Chitika, which measured ad impressions from December 1 to December 27, expects the iPad to get back into the 80 percent range as users return from vacations.

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