It’s late this month, but it seems the statisticians are back at work at Google and have released the latest Android Device Distribution figures for the period ending January 8th. This data is accumulated from devices using the Google Play App on Android which of course is only supported from Android 2.2 and upwards, but Google advised that devices running earlier version accounted for less than 1% in August last year. So, how did December shape up?
Kit Kat(4.4) has climbed, but at a very miniscule rate gaining only 0.3% market share to end at 1.4%. Jelly Bean(4.1-4.3) is still the rising star at this stage, gaining 5% more market share at the expense of Ice Cream Sandwich(4.0.3-4.0.4) and Gingerbread(2.3.3-2.3.7) both of which lost market share, with the previous king Gingerbread retaining only just over 20% market share.
Strangely enough FroYo devices actually grew, accounting for just 1.3% of the market last month, this month the statistics found that 1.6% of devices are still running FroYo – for the love of everything, buy a new device people.
As devices start coming out of the Shenzhen powerhouses in China this year, we’ll see if Googles hope for lower end devices to adopt the supposedly more low-spec friendly Kit Kat to pick up steam, but for now it seems that Jelly Bean is and will continue to be king. But really, as good as Jelly Bean is – compared to Gingerbread – all I can say is Long live the King.
