14 DAY TRIAL // Google's Android operating system is enjoying increasing popularity among mobile phone users, and is even expected to become the leading mobile platform on the market in the very near future. When it comes to the distribution of various versions of the OS on active devices out there, it seems that Android 2.2 Froyo remains on top of the list once again. The platform gain some more percentage points during the last month, and is now present on 65.9 percent of active Android devices out there, up from the 63.9 percent Android devices it was loaded on a month ago.
The new figures come from Google themselves, are based on data collected during a 14-day period ending on May 2, 2011, and were published on the company's Android Developers website.
The data is based on the total number of devices that accessed the Android Market in the aforementioned time frame.
Newer OS versions, including Android 2.3, Android 2.3.3 and Android 3.0, started to pick up Steam as well, though at a slow pace.
Android 2.3 (Gingerbread) accounted for 1 percent of active devices, up from 0.8 percent a month ago, Android 2.3.3 was present on 3 percent of them, up from 1.7 percent, while Android 3.0 Honeycomb was loaded on 0.3 percent devices, up from 0.2 percent.
Older operating system versions are lowing even more ground. Android 2.1, for example, was loaded on 24.5 percent of active devices, down from 27.2 percent in early April.
Android 1.6 was present on 3.0 percent of active Android devices during the said two weeks, down from 3.5 percent a month ago, while Android 1.5 was loaded on 2.3 percent of them, down from 2.7 percent.
The data is meant to offer application developers an overview of the Android platform distribution, so that they would know which devices they should target with their mobile software.
