Android in April 2011: Froyo and Gingerbread keep rising

We’ve just been given the Android version distribution report for April and there doesn’t appear to be any major changes in the existing trends. Froyo keeps gaining market share, but this time its growth rate is almost matched by Gingerbread. Honeycomb has gained some ground too, but it’s still by far the rarest distribution in existence.

Froyo still remains the biggest gainer, adding 2% to its already huge market share. And while the growth rate of Android 2.2 has been reduced nearly twice compared to March, when it gained about 4%, with a total of 65.9% it will remain the most popular version for at least another year.

The smartphone distribution that came to replace Froyo, Gingerbread is starting to pick up the pace and has even managed to surpass the market shares of the (long outdated) 1.5 Cupcake and 1.6 Donut versions. Gingerbread 2.3 and 2.3.3 have registered a total increase by 1.5% to 4%. For comparison, Gingerbread only gained about 1% in March.

The tablet-friendly Honeycomb is the only other Android distribution to register a positive change in April even if by just a tenth of a percent.

The pre-2.2 Android versions are now in full-blown retreat. 2.1 Eclair slipped 2.7% to 24.5%, 1.6 Donut lost half a percent to a total of 3%, while 1.5 Cupcake went down by 0.4% to 2.3%.

With the Google I/O event, expected to bring the new Android 3.1 version just around the corner it would be hard to make any long-term predictions. Yet until its effects are felt we are expecting the evolutionary steps to continue at about the same rate.

So May and June will certainly see another major increase in Gingerbread droids, while Froyo will hardly add much more to its market share. The growth will come at the expense of the oldest three distributions. Honeycomb is bound to stay on the sideline at least until the two ultra-slim Galaxy Tab slates come up.

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