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Android's Jelly Bean surpasses Gingerbread for the first time

Google's newest operating system has finally taken the crown as Android's most popular OS.

Dara Kerr Former senior reporter
Dara Kerr was a senior reporter for CNET covering the on-demand economy and tech culture. She grew up in Colorado, went to school in New York City and can never remember how to pronounce gif.
Dara Kerr
2 min read
Data collected during a 14-day period ending on July 8, 2013. Google

Android's Jelly Bean operating system has finally toppled the older and uber-popular Gingerbread. According to Android usage data that Google released Monday, Jelly Bean now has 37.9 percent adoption and Gingerbread has 34.1 percent.

This is an increase of 4.9 percentage points for Jelly Bean since last month. In June, Jelly Bean had 33 percent usage and Gingerbread had 36.5 percent. The new data reflects usage from the 14-day period ending on July 8.

While Jelly Bean is now the most popular OS for Android, users are still split between versions 4.1 and 4.2. By far, more users are on Jelly Bean 4.1 with 32.3 percent. Only 5.6 percent of people are currently using Jelly Bean 4.2.

As far as the other operating systems on Android, Ice Cream Sandwich now has 23.3 percent, which is a drop from 25.6 percent last month. Jelly Bean overtook Ice Cream Sandwich for the first time in May. The numbers for Donut, Eclair, Froyo, and Honeycomb are pretty low at this point -- their combined usage is less than 5 percent.

In April, Google began counting data a little bit differently. Previously, devices were counted when they checked into Google's servers. But the company is now collecting data when users visit the Google Play Store. The company says this way of counting data more accurately reflects users "who are most engaged in the Android and Google Play ecosystem."

The driving force behind the growth in Jelly Bean seems to be Samsung's Galaxy S3 and S4, which have sold millions of units in the past year. Gingerbread, released in 2010, is the operating system that's typically used on less-expensive phones. It's looking like Jelly Bean will now just continue to grow with the integration of newer high-powered devices.