Even though all Tier 1 U.S carriers are now heavily promoting LTE smartphones, the majority of North American mobile Web traffic does not come from those phones right now, according to online advertising network Chitika. Fully 70 percent of North American mobile Web traffic comes from "non-4G" smartphones, the company said. Chitika defined "4G" smartphones as smartphones with LTE capabilities, according to a company spokesman. Chitika Insights found that 4G phones contribute to about 30 percent of the total traffic from all North American smartphones. Within the 4G group, users of newer phones, specifically released after July 2012, generated 53 percent of continental 4G smartphone traffic. To quantify 4G phone Web usage, Chitika said it analyzed tens of millions of smartphone-based online ad impressions recorded on the Chitika network from June 1 to June 13, 2013. Interestingly, Chitika found Apple(NASDAQ:AAPL) iPhone 5 users in particular generated about 40 percent of the total traffic from 4G phones and 76 percent of the traffic from 4G phones released after July 2012. Post
Article updated June 28 at 12:45 p.m. ET to reflect that "4G" smartphones in the Chitika report refer to LTE smartphones.