ICS adoption peaks as Gingerbread refuses to let go

It’s about time! For the first time ever, there are more Android devices running a modern version of Android—version 4 and above—than there are running Gingerbread. Meanwhile, Ice Cream Sandwich has hit its peak and adoptions are now falling.

Ice Cream Sandwich and Jelly Bean now rule most devices. Both versions of Android together hold more of the market than Gingerbread. Ice Cream Sandwich currently possesses 28.6 percent of the Android pie chart, a one percent decline since last month.

ICS has a lot of users, but they're leaving it for Jelly Bean

Android 4.1 adoptions have grown from 12.2 percent last month to 14.9 percent this month. Android 4.2, which is currently the latest version of Android, has grown slightly from 1.4 percent to 1.6.

In all, Android 4.0 and up now hold 45.1 percent of the Android pie, narrowly ousting Gingerbread, which still runs on a whopping 44.2 percent of Android phones. The adoption rates of the modern Android versions have definitely been slow, with a lot of budget Android handsets still shipping with Gingerbread, by far the most dependable version of the OS. On the other hand, developers are finding it difficult to develop apps that will work on Gingerbread as they do on ICS and Jelly Bean.

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As predicted earlier, Ice Cream Sandwich devices indeed have hit rock-bottom as far as device adoptions go. It’s official: ICS will never hit the 30 percent mark and it only has Google’s improper phasing out to thank for that.

The year began on an interesting note for Google, with Jelly Bean crossing the 10 percent share mark and Gingerbread finally letting go and falling below 50 percent.

The newest version of Android is witnessing rapid growth thanks to newer 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. Besides new devices, Jelly Bean being rolled out to devices running ICS is the norm with most handset manufacturers today. We must keep in mind, though, that the Android Developers Dashboard data is based on Phones accessing the Play Store in the given 14-day period, thanks to which results will be skewed more towards the higher end phones. There could be a lot more Gingerbread devices than expected.

An interesting scene has been set for the launch of Android version 5.0, Key Lime Pie, which is rumoured to hit the market in spring 2013. It will be especially interesting to see how Google drives up the adoptions for higher Android models.