Almost Two-Thirds of Android Devices Still Use Gingerbread

While there has been a significant increase in Ice Cream Sandwich adoption since last month, a large majority of Android devices are still based on Android 2.3, or Gingerbread, according to Android Developers’ recently released monthly overview of the number of active devices running different versions of Android.

As of July 2, 64% of Android devices use 2.3.x or Gingerbread, and 10.9% of devices use 4.0 or Ice Cream Sandwich. For comparison, 7.1% of active Android devices used ICS and 65% used Gingerbread one month ago. 

Android 2.2 or Froyo is still running strong with a 17.3% share, while (now truly ancient) Android 2.1 or Eclair is present on 4.7% of devices. Other versions have a negligible market share and, unsurprisingly, the upcoming Android 4.1 or Jelly Bean is not even a blip on the radar.

Android fragmentation has been a persistent issue ever since the platform was introduced, and it seems it’s bound to get worse than ever, with Gingerbread (and even Froyo) refusing to go, Ice Cream Sandwich being adopted slowly and Jelly Bean lurking around the corner. Developing software for Android or even simply owning an Android device is and will continue to be affected by this situation.

We’ll see if Google’s recent launch of its Platform Development Kit (PDK), which will be delivered to hardware manufacturers in advance for each version of Android, will alleviate this problem in the future. 

Source: mashable.com