14 DAY TRIAL // Android 4.4 KitKat, the latest flavor of Google’s mobile operating system, saw impressive growth during the last month, now being loaded on 13.6 percent of all active Android devices out there, the latest data coming from Google unveils.
The platform iteration was enjoying only an 8.5 percent share among the various Android versions in the beginning of May, but it managed to grow no less than 5.1 percentage points until the end of the month.
The figure is based on data collected during the 7-day period ending on June 4, 2014, and it shows devices that are using the latest Google Play Store app, which offers support for Android 2.2 and above platform versions.
Thus, no operating system iteration prior to Android 2.2 is included in the statistics, though Google notes that these accounted for only about 1 percent of all devices that checked in to Google servers.
Moreover, the company unveils that the Jelly Bean platform flavors have started to lose more market share and that they are now present on 58.4 percent of all active Android devices. At the end of May, they were loaded on 60.8 percent devices.
As of June 4, Android 4.1 powered 29 percent of products, Android 4.2 was present on 19.1 percent of them, while Android 4.3 accounted for 10.3 percent devices. What’s interesting to note is that, although Jelly Bean lost ground, Android 4.3 grew last month, up for 8.5 percent share it enjoyed on May 3.
The older 4.0.3 - 4.0.4 Ice Cream Sandwich OS versions were loaded on 12.3 percent of Android devices out there, down from 13.4 percent a month ago.
Google’s latest data on Android devices also shows that the aging Gingerbread platform release is losing even more ground in front of newer iterations, now present on only 14.9 percent devices, down from 16.2 percent in the beginning of May.
Android 2.2 Froyo was loaded on 0.8 percent devices last month, down 0.2 percentage points compared to April. Android 3.2 Honeycomb, on the other hand, didn’t even make it to the distribution chart this month, after dropping below 0.1 percent share.
By the looks of it, we can assume that both Android 4.4 KitKat and 4.3 Jelly Bean will continue growing in the next months, with the former set to soon become the most used Android version out there.
Even if Google releases an Android 4.5 iteration this summer, and even if it doesn’t feature the KitKat moniker, Android 4.4 will continue to grow steadily, just as 4.3 Jelly Bean does at the moment.