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Gingerbread owns Android market, but Ice Cream Sandwich awaits

The latest data on the Android platform shows Gingerbread taking over 50 percent of the market and Froyo dropping to 35 percent.

Don Reisinger
CNET contributor Don Reisinger is a technology columnist who has covered everything from HDTVs to computers to Flowbee Haircut Systems. Besides his work with CNET, Don's work has been featured in a variety of other publications including PC World and a host of Ziff-Davis publications.
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Don Reisinger
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A look at how the Android ecosystem breaks down.
A look at how the Android ecosystem breaks down. Android Developers Resource

Android 2.3, aka Gingerbread, has officially taken over half of the Android ecosystem, according to new data.

As of yesterday, Gingerbread's many versions were running on 50.6 percent of all the Android devices in the wild, data published on the Android developers page shows. Android 2.2 (Froyo) trailed with 35.3 percent market share. The only other Android version with notable market share--Android 2.1 (Eclair)--captured 9.6 percent of the space during the 14-day period.

Honeycomb's various flavors, which are running on the majority of Android-based tablets, were only able to nab 2.4 percent share.

Gingerbread's rise has come quite quickly, considering the operating system debuted about a year ago. However, when compared to iOS 5, its adoption might seem rather slow.

Last month, online ad network Chitika reported that iOS 5 was running on 40 percent of all Apple devices. That report followed a data dump from mobile app analytics company Localytics, which said iOS 5 was running on one-third of Apple devices just a week after the operating system launched in October.

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In the coming weeks, Gingerbread will likely continue to gain market share in the Android space. Earlier this week, in fact, Verizon rolled out a Gingerbread update for the Samsung Droid Charge.

However, sometime this month, Samsung will be launching the Android 4.0-equipped Galaxy Nexus. And when it does, that operating system, dubbed Ice Cream Sandwich, could swiftly catapult to the top of the Android ecosystem as more vendors load the OS onto their devices. LG will be one of the first vendors to do that, saying last week that Ice Cream Sandwich was on its way to select phones in its Optimus line.