Jelly Bean adoption grows as Gingerbread falls below 50 percent

The number of devices running Android 4.2 Jelly Bean has crossed the 10 percent mark, according to Google's monthly breakdown of the Android market. The share of devices running Ice Cream Sandwich is inching towards 30 percent.

The newest version of Android – 4.1 and 4.2 – Jelly Bean is finding more subscribers each month, with adoptions up by 5 percent since December 2012. The driving force behind this growth are rapid sales of phones like Samsung Galaxy S3, HTC One X and the Nexus tablets. High-end phones being given as gifts during Christmas and the holiday season too has been touted as a major reason for the sudden growth in the number of devices running Jelly Bean. 

Jelly Bean grows as Gingerbread diminishes

The results saw the share of the most popular Android platform so far, Gingerbread, fall below the 50 percent mark for the first time. Gingerbread is now at 47.8 percent, down 3.2 percent since the last report. Android 2.2, Froyo, too fell a good 1.3 percent from 10.3 percent to 9.0 percent.

While Gingerbread is still leading the pack as the most popular Android Platform and Ice Cream Sandwich (Android 4.0) is still second, Froyo is no longer the third on the list. Jelly Bean has crept up to take the third spot, continuing to gain adoption at a breakneck speed as more and more devices are being activated every day. Despite the fact that the newer versions of Android seem to be growing fast, Gingerbread is not going to go away any time soon, as it is still shipped on budget Android handsets. Its stability and cost-effectiveness is why it still rules over almost half the Android pie.

Besides being activated in newer devices, Jelly Bean is being rolled out by manufacturers every day for phones that are already running Ice Cream Sandwich. Google has already rolled out Jelly Bean for its older Nexus devices such as the Nexus 7 and Galaxy Nexus, which has contributed heavily to the rapid growth of Android Jelly Bean.

Jelly Bean’s growth seems to be surpassing the rate at which even Ice Cream Sandwich was growing. The race for the top two slots between the two latest versions of Android looks set to heat up, even as Google is getting ready to release Key Lime Pie.

It was recently revealed that Samsung’s flagship device Galaxy S II users would have to wait to get a Jelly Bean update after the manufacturer delayed the update to the December-January window after a series of previous delays.

One of the reasons for the delay could possibly be the recent reveal of a security exploit on Exynos 4 based devices, and Samsung may be working on a fix for it. The company could also be better optimising its TouchWiz UI for the older devices. The delay could also be caused by the localisation required for different countries, as Samsung plans to release the update globally instead of rolling it out country-wise.