It is now the month of May and you know what that means – Google has updated the Android platform distribution stats so let’s take a look at how the latest version of Android is chugging along! According to Google’s latest figures, it looks like Android 4.4 KitKat is enjoying a steady rise and has jumped by 3.2% to 8.5%, a pretty big increase from last month’s 5.3%.
Perhaps it’s the launch of new Android handsets by OEMs such as HTC, Sony, Samsung, and LG that helped to get those numbers up. That and the fact that older Android handsets have received their KitKat update probably helped with those numbers as well. As far as older versions of Android are concerned, Jelly Bean is still holding a lion’s share of the distribution pie.
The combined numbers of the various Jelly Bean builds account for 60.8% which is a huge amount but we guess the steady climb of KitKat adoption is good news as well. At the rate it is growing, we can expect KitKat to overtake Jelly Bean in a relatively short period of time, hopefully.
Android devices running Gingerbread and Ice Cream Sandwich are still pretty high and account for more devices than KitKat, but like we said at the rate KitKat is growing, it shouldn’t be long before it overtakes them. Interestingly enough it seems that Froyo and Honeycomb devices are still out there albeit only a small portion and we have to wonder if they will ever go away.