Today, Google published the latest distribution figures of the Android operating system. The numbers reveal a consistent growth in the amount of Android users running Jelly Bean, whilst older versions of the OS continue on their path towards extinction. As expected, these latest results show a significant increase in the amount of users running the most recent software version, 4.4 KitKat.

This data has been collected by recording which operating systems customers were running when they accessed the Google Play Store over a 7-day period ending on March 3, 2014. This consequently gives Google an insight as to which version of Android is running on active devices all around the world. The team at Mountain View then break down this information and condense it into a neat little pie chart for us comb through.

At first glance, it quickly becomes apparent that Cupcake, Donut and Eclair are missing from the chart. This does not mean that they no longer exist, in fact, they are absent because these builds of the Android operating system can no longer use the updated version of the Play Store, however, Google did mention that “versions older than Android 2.2 accounted for about 1% of the devices that checked in to Google servers.”

The above figures clearly show that Honeycomb 3.2 is almost at the point of eradication, holding on with just 0.1% of the Android market for the ninth month running. Froyo has decreased very slightly, measuring in at 1.2% of the market distribution.

The number of Android users still running Gingerbread (Versions 2.3.3 – 2.3.7) has reduced, with the amount of consumers running the outdated build of the operating system dropping down to just 19% — that’s a 5.1% decrease from last months figures.

The amount of users running Ice Cream Sandwich appears to have decreased rather slightly, too, with market distribution dropping down to 15.2% – which is a 3.4% decrease from last months 18.6%.

This data irrefutably exhibits that Jelly Bean and KitKat are the only versions of the open-source operating system to face an adequate increase in users over the course of the past month; as both software versions now hold a combined market usage of 64.5%.

To view the full report on Google’s Android Developer Dashboard — click the source link below.

• SourceAndroid Developer Dashboard