Android stats: Jelly Bean inches closer to Gingerbread, moving past Ice Cream Sandwich

Google has published new Android stats that show Jelly Bean’s growing share of the Android pie at the expense of previous versions.

Combined, Android 4.2.x Jelly Bean (2.3%) and Android 4.1.x Jelly Bean (26.1%) account for 28.4% share, or just enough to move past Ice Cream Sandwich in the charts which has a 27.5% share.

The numbers are based on “data collected during a 14-day period ending on May 1, 2013” and use Google’s new algorithm to count Android devices, which focuses on Google Play Store visits rather than data from Google’s servers:

Beginning in April, 2013, these charts are now built using data collected from each device when the user visits the Google Play Store. Previously, the data was collected when the device simply checked-in to Google servers. We believe the new data more accurately reflects those users who are most engaged in the Android and Google Play ecosystem.

Gingerbread is still the most used Android OS out there, accounting for 38.5% of the Android ecosystem, while older OS versions including Donut, Eclair, Froyo, and Honeycomb are still in the picture, but they account for less than 6% combined.

Compared to the previous reporting period, Jelly Bean is up 3.4%, with Ice Cream Sandwich and Gingerbread also losing ground – 1.8% and 1.3% market share drops, respectively.

Obviously, the numbers shouldn’t be that surprising considering that more OEMs are releasing Jelly Bean-running devices, but also upgrading more of their existing smartphones and tablets to one of Google’s Jelly Bean versions.

Furthermore, new rumors combined with server log data seem to suggest that Google may be launching an Android 4.3 version at Google I/O later this month. Android 4.3 is expected to be part of the Jelly Bean family, a move that would give and OEMs plenty of time to upgrade existing devices to Jelly Bean before moving to a next major OS such as Android 5.0.