Jelly Bean now on 59.1% of Android devices, KitKat sits at 1.4%

Google has updated its Android platform distribution numbers for the month of January. According to the latest stats, Jelly Bean has the lion's share of the Android market with 59.1 percent devices running it, while Android's newest flavor 'Kit Kat' also witnessed an increase in market share and now stands at 1.4 percent.


Compared with the previous month, Jelly Bean's market share surged by approximately 5 percent, and Kit Kat increased by 0.3 percent. While the spike in Jelly Bean's numbers is a good indication that more and more users are flocking to a newer Android OS version, the slow adoption rate of KitKat can be attributed to the fact that it is limited to mostly Google hardware. As more and more third party devices start getting KitKat updates, or come with it pre-installed, its market share will rise.

Ice cream sandwich runs on 16.9% of Android devices, while Gingerbread has 21.2% market share. Though both of these flavors are being used by more than one third of Android users, the good news is that their market share is down 2-3 percent when compared with the last update. Honeycomb and Froyo ended the survey period with 0.1 percent and 1.3 percent market share respectively.

Google reveals fresh Android distribution numbers each month on its Android Developers Blog. The stats cover Android devices that access the Play Store in the last 7 days. According to Google, this data reflects devices running the latest Google Play Store app, which is compatible with Android 2.2 and higher.