In a blog post sharing the data, Chitika suggests that businesses targeting mobile users should still favor iOS due to iPhone owners browsing more than their Galaxy S III counterparts. What explains the different in web traffic between the two devices? “Record-breaking sales numbers, along with new 4G browsing speeds which encourage data usage, are the most likely explanation for this tremendous growth,” says Chitika. I’m not sold on the 4G LTE support as a huge influence here though: Samsung’s Galaxy S III launched with LTE support in U.S. markets, just as the new iPhone 5 did.

Normally, these types of web usage studies show iPhones exceeding that of Android devices, so I’m not questioning the data. In fact, where Chitika sees the data as a bad sign for Samsung, I’d counter that to a degree, it’s actually not so bad. Why? Because this is the first time I can remember seeing a single Android handset model being even close to competitive to Apple’s iPhone in any statistical research. Android as a whole exceeds iPhone sales but Apple fans are quick to point out that no single phone can compete. At least one does now.

Regardless of whether you see the glass half full or half empty, I asked Chitika for additional data on the top mobile sites that both phone groups were browsing. I’m curious if some of them are simply more popular and geared towards one platform or the other that could be adding weight to either phone.

Chitika couldn’t provide the specifics due to contractual agreements with advertisers but said:

[B]e assured that our network is composed of hundreds of thousands of publishers within the United States across a diverse set of verticals.  As such, our network studies are a representative sample of U.S. Internet behavior.

Related research and analysis from GigaOM Pro:
Subscriber content. Sign up for a free trial.

• Tablets wars: Apple is from Venus, Amazon is from Mars
• The future of mobile: a segment analysis by GigaOM Pro
• The connected planet: Smartphones aren’t the only player

Chitika’s data, which is culled from its extensive ad network, showed that Lion remained at 14 percent adoption still three months after it was released last summer. As the chart below shows, the most popular Mac OS X version is the version that came before Lion, OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard, which is on 45.5 percent of Macs still.

Two possible reasons why the adoption of Mountain Lion is outpacing Lion: Mountain Lion is a bit cheaper than Lion at $19.99 compared to $29.99. But Lion was also considered a largely evolutionary upgrade and, as Om put it, was a confusing cacophony of new features. Mountain Lion, on the other hand, has been positively reviewed as a much better upgrade, and includes some very important pieces to Apple’s overall product vision, including iCloud.

Related research and analysis from GigaOM Pro:
Subscriber content. Sign up for a free trial.

• The evolution of consumer-media cloud storage
• Siri: Say hello to the coming “invisible interface”
• Forecast: Tablet App Sales To Hit $8B by 2015

The short answer is: mostly coastal states. In its Chitika Insights report, the company says it combined its own data showing new iPad activations — which currently account for 9 percent of all iPad traffic on its ad network — with U.S. Census bureau data. It found:

• The top five areas with the most newly activated iPad traffic are California, Hawaii, Nevada, Washington D.C. and Washington state.
• Those states (and district) — not coincidentally — are considered states of high median income levels, according to census data.
• By categorizing them in categories of either “coastal” or “inland,” Chitika learned that residents of coastal states are purchasing activating new iPads at a higher rate than their inland brethren.
• The median income in coastal states is 10 percent higher than that of inland states.

The conclusion, that people with more money are the ones rushing out the door to buy the latest tablet tech from Apple, isn’t that surprising. Obviously people who have extra discretionary spending money lying around can afford to buy gadgets that go for a minimum of $500.

Interestingly, this data pretty much mirrors what we learned about Apple’s customers in its second-largest market, China. Last week a research firm counted up the owners of all 21 million iPads and iPhones in China and found the highest concentration of those devices were in the country’s rich, coastal, heavily industrialized areas.

Related research and analysis from GigaOM Pro:
Subscriber content. Sign up for a free trial.

• Forecast: Tablet App Sales To Hit $8B by 2015
• The state of cross-platform media measurement
• Analyzing the wearable computing market

Chitika released data late last night showing Windows Phone 7 activity on its advertising network is barely measurable. In a blog post, Chitika, which serves more than a billion ads monthly across 100,000 websites, says for every one network ad impression on a Windows Phone 7 handset, it sees 110 impressions from Android phones and 172 from iPhones. These results are from the prior three weeks and incorporate handset data from more than 31 million ad impressions during that time.

Clearly, any new smartphone platform won’t initially compete with strong-selling incumbents, so we can’t read into this limited data too much. But at a minimum, it lends credence to rumors and grumblings that Windows Phone 7 devices may not be selling well just yet, and it provides a nice baseline for future research.

Early analyst projections indicated that 40,000 Windows Phone 7 handsets were sold on the initial launch day last month. The devices are only available on two of the four major carriers in the U.S., which also limits potential sales, and Dell is facing production delays for one Windows Phone 7 model. And although it’s the holiday season, I’ve never seen price cuts and “buy one, get one” free offers for any handset system so quickly before now, yet I’ve recently noticed several such deals for the one-month old platform.

The main problem for Windows Phone 7 may not be in marketing and availability, however. Although the platform has a refreshing user interface that differs greatly from competitors, my hands-on experience shows that Microsoft still has much room for improvement in Windows Phone 7. Some standard features on competing phones won’t be arriving on Microsoft handsets until next year, for example. And by comparison, the Windows Marketplace app store is lacking, even though a large number of developers say they’re interested in the platform; in recent surveys, 20 percent of programmers plan to code apps for Windows Phone 7 next year, which is the same number planning to make iPad apps.

To be sure, Windows Phone 7 has a long road ahead of it, and Microsoft appears committed to the journey. Handset sales are expected to overtake traditional computer sales by 2012 and Microsoft can’t afford to stay out of this market so it’s likely to follow the same strategy it has with its Xbox: keep pouring money into the effort until it finally becomes profitable. Early data, however, suggests that Microsoft could be traveling down this path for many years to come with Windows Phone 7.

Related content from GigaOM Pro (subscription req’d):

• Could Games Redeem Windows Mobile and Palm’s webOS?
• Why Carriers Still Hold the Key to Handset Sales
• Is an iPhone- and Android-Only World the Best We Can Do?

The Droid 2 is the new version of the Motorola Droid, and given the success of the original, the new Droid will probably be a hot seller. It’s not shipping in volume yet, so there are few in the wild, but Chitika wants to keep an eye on how fast the Droid 2 blasts off. The tracker paints a good picture of how well all the top Android phones compare in actual web usage, a good indicator for how many are in user’s hands.

According to Chitika, the Droid usage is almost four times the nearest competitor: the Sprint EVO 4G. Verizon’s Droid Incredible is in third, with the original Android phone — the T-Mobile G1 — showing respectable numbers. The biggest surprise is the Droid X. It’s only in fifth place on the list, but that’s pretty good for a phone only available for a few weeks.

We’re going to keep an eye on this unusual tracker since it’s updated in real time. It will be interesting to see how the new Droid 2 factors into the numbers once it starts shipping. Will it knock the other Android phones down the list, or will consumers currently using another platform convert?

Related content from GigaOM Pro (sub req’d): Google’s Mobile Strategy: Understanding the Nexus One

If this rate continues, Apple will likely sell its millionth iPad before both the international and 3G iPad launch. That’s good news, both for current iPad owners, and for the future of the platform.

Chitka Research bases their estimates on the number of iPads seen coming through the Chitika ad network multiplied by “how much of the Internet we see at any given time.” Chitika serves some two billion monthly impressions over 80,000 websites.

Chitika may even be conservative in their estimates. On the day Apple announced 300,000 iPads sold, Chitika estimated 270,000. As to where those iPads were sold, not surprisingly the largest states have seen the greatest sales, with California, Texas, New York, and Florida accounting for more than 20, 8, 8, and 6 percent respectively.

As for when Apple will sell its millionth iPad, it seems increasingly likely that the second wave of iPad shipments for April 12th will help the company reach that milestone. This would be well in advance of a rumored international launch on April 24th, and likely before the 3G iPad ships in “late April.” To put a million iPads sold in a month in context, in January USA Today interviewed IDC analyst David Daoud, who estimates sales for slate and tablet-convertible PCs to be 1.25 million for all of 2010.

For those undecided on purchasing an iPad because of concerns over the viability of the platform, your credit cards can rest easy. The more iPads sold, the more apps and accessories created and sold, which means more iPads sold. The only possible downside of iPad success might be price reductions being less likely. However, that means better resale value when Apple releases the next iPad and you want to upgrade. The greater the iPad sales, the more impetus given Apple to improve the hardware, with things like a faster CPU and more RAM, maybe that rumored camera.

Next up, ten million iPads. How does Christmas sound?

There is one massive caveat: Of those 92 million impressions cited in the study, some 1.3 million (1.5 percent) came from mobile browsing, which in my opinion is a miniscule sample size. That said, I think mobile advertising needs a fresh approach, one that doesn’t simply replicate traditional web advertising. What do you guys think? Are you more or less likely to click on ads on your mobile device than on your desktop?

Related research and analysis from GigaOM Pro:
Subscriber content. Sign up for a free trial.

• Facebook’s IPO filing: ideas and implications
• NewNet Q4: Platform mania and social commerce shakeout
• NewNet Q4: Platform mania and social commerce shakeout