Android Fragmentation - Changing How the Numbers Add Up

Fragmentation has been a much discussed issue over the past few years. And it does not seem to be resolving itself in the most recent information which has been released. Gingerbread is still holding strong at about 39% and given that it was released at the end of 2010, it still has a huge market presence more than 2 years later. One would have thought that it would be tapering off by now, but that is not the case. Ice Cream Sandwich has finally grown close to the 30% mark for its share of the Android market. It was released in October 2011 and one would have thought that it would have grown quickly replacing Gingerbread.

All of this is from the latest report from the Android Developer site where they put out numbers monthly to show the status and distribution of the various versions of Android. As of this latest report, they are now showing Jelly Bean at 25% which is looking extremely good as compared to the slow growth of Ice Cream Sandwich. Jelly Bean was released as the latest Android version in June 2012, so things are positive in working towards getting the version distributed. But is that necessarily true? In the information from the site, there is a note regarding how they are counting things.

Note: 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.

It seems that the changes in the method of counting has put Jelly Bean in a very favorable light giving them a huge jump from the March Android report. In March, Jelly Bean was sitting at just over 16% and now with the April Android report, they are now at 25%. That is a huge one month increase and can partially be attributed to the change in the way that they are calculating the numbers.

On the surface, they are changing the method of measuring Android OS version to make things more accurate. But the end result is a huge jump in the numbers for Jelly Bean making it look to be highly successful in less than a year. In the end, this may not mean that much for Android Fragmentation. The next months reporting may be the one to compare month over month to see how that one looks as compared to the recent changes in how things are measured.