Gingerbread most popular Android flavor at 56 percent market share

Despite its elderly status in the Android world, Gingerbread is still the man.

Google yesterday updated its Android developers page, revealing that Android 2.3 (Gingerbread) is running on 55.8 percent of all Android devices. Android 4.0 (Ice Cream Sandwich) came in second place with 23.7 percent share. Interestingly, the latest Android version, Jelly Bean, was only able to muster 1.8 percent share, while the outdated Android 2.2 (Froyo) came in at 12.9 percent market ownership.

That Gingerbread is still dominant is rather surprising, considering that this version of the operating system arrived on the mobile scene in December 2010. However, its market share is slowly waning: at the beginning of September, its share stood at 57.5 percent.

Android developers have grown accustomed to accommodating many different versions. Over the years, the latest and greatest Android devices run the newest version, but legacy devices are slow to receive those updates. In other cases, older devices don't receive updates to the new software at all. It's not clear if, or even how, that trend might change.

The Android market share data was collected based on the number of Android devices that accessed the Google Play marketplace during a 14-day period that ended yesterday.