Gingerbread dominates current Android devices
As the new year gets started, Gingerbread devices make up more than half of the Android market share while Ice Cream Sandwich barely begins to register.
Google updated its popular platform version chart this week, giving a current snapshot of the popularity of the various Android releases.
As expected, Gingerbread (Android 2.3x) leads the way with a combined 55.5 percent share of the market, followed by Froyo at 30.4 percent and 2-year-old Eclair at 8.5 percent. Trailing behind are Honeycomb (3.3 percent) and very marginal showings for Donut (version 1.6), Cupcake (version 1.5), and Ice Cream Sandwich (version 4).
The latest chart marks the first time we've seen Ice Cream Sandwich make an impact, even if it is tiny. With Verizon having only recently released the Samsung Galaxy Nexus, that single handset is responsible for 0.6 percent of Android's market.
Look for more Android 4.0 devices to be announced next week at CES and in February at Mobile World Congress, with launch dates in the near future. In terms of existing devices that should see Ice Cream Sandwich, we can expect Sony Ericsson, Samsung, LG, Motorola, and HTC to begin deploying updates before long.
To help developers understand the ever-shifting landscape, these figures indicate which versions are on the rise and which are tapering off. In the case of Honeycomb, they prove to us just how little adoption a specific release might have.