iPad’s dominance of tablet usage, even 1.5 years later, is astounding

How many dozens of Android tablets have been announced? Plus the BlackBerry PlayBook and HP’s TouchPad?

And yet, among tablets, Apple’s iPad represented 97.2% of U.S. tablet web traffic in August, according to comScore. That is incredible dominance, given that it’s already been 1.5 years since the iPad went on sale.

That said, it’s still early. Tablets only represent about 2% of overall U.S. web traffic, I’ve calculated, via comScore’s report. (“The share of non-computer traffic for the U.S. stood at 6.8 percent in August 2011, with approximately two-thirds of that traffic coming from mobile phones, and tablets accounting for much of the remainder.”)

At SplatF, about 5% of visits over the past month were on iPads, according to Google Analytics. Android tablets barely showed up in the logs.

Over time, I expect Android tablets to catch up a bit. Amazon’s $200 Kindle Fire tablet, launching next month, could lead the way.

But this should give you a good idea of how the iPad is still the only tablet that matters.

Sure, other tablets may be shipping to resellers and wireless carriers. Last week, Apple CEO Tim Cook cited IDC statistics claiming that iPad market share was 74% in the U.S. during Q2. However, it wasn’t clear if those were shipments into channel inventory or sales to actual people.

But either way, usage is arguably a more important stat for the long-term. And that’s where Apple is still utterly dominating.

Related: 500 days with the iPad