Google Android fragmentation decreases as 63% of users adopt Jellybean and Ice Cream Sandwich

There has been a rapid shift towards newer versions of Android since the start of 2012, with 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich and 4.1/4.2 Jellybean now running on 63% of all devices, according to new Google figures.

This represents a large uptick since January, when SmartCompany reported 39.3% used Android 4, with 29.1% opting for 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich, while 10.2% used 4.1/4.2 Jellybean.

In contrast, today 40.5% of Android users now use 4.1/4.2 Jellybean, while the share running 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich has declined slightly to 22.5%.

In January, 47.6% of Android users still used Android 2.3 Gingerbread; however, this figure has now decreased to 33.1%.

Meanwhile, fragmentation is becoming less of an issue on the platform, with just 3.8% remaining on another version of Android, including 1.6 Donut, 2.1 Éclair, 2.2 Froyo or 3.2 Honeycomb.

In January, the marketshare for Froyo alone stood at 9%.

The figures are also in stark contrast to June 2012, when Ice Cream Sandwich ran on just 2.4% of Android devices, while 65% of Android devices ran 2.3 Gingerbread, 19.1% ran 2.2 Froyo, 5.2% ran 2.1 Eclaire, and 2.7% ran 3.0 Honeycomb.

At the time, the spread of different Android versions in use and slow adoption rate for Ice Cream Sandwich prompted fears of the Android platform fragmenting.

The figures were collected by measuring the version of Android devices used to access Google Play over a 14-day period.