Hey Android fans, how does starting your Wednesday morning off with some percentages and figures sound? Good? Alright then, let's dive in. First up, Google has updated its Android version distribution chart, and the latest batch of numbers is especially interesting because it's the first time that Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich has been figured in to the pie you see above. In its first showing, ICS grabbed a total of 0.6 percent of devices accessing the Android Market during the two-week period ending on January 3rd, with Android 4.0-4.0.2 and Android 4.0.3 each earning a 0.3 percent share. Moving on down the line, Honeycomb (Android 3.x) finished with a total of 3.3 percent, Gingerbread (2.3) growing to 55.5 percent, Froyo (2.2) still owning a 30.4 percent share and Eclair (2.1) with 8.5 percent. At the bottom of the barrel is Donut (1.6) with a 1.1 percent share and Cupcake (1.5) appearing on 0.6 percent of devices accessing the Market.
Speaking of the Android Market, app store analytics firm Distimo is now reporting that the Market now has over 400,000 active applications available to Android users. Free apps have contributed quite a bit to that figure, as 68 percent of all of the apps available in the Market at the end of 2011 were priced at the low, low cost of $0. When it comes to speed of growth, Distimo notes that it took the Android Market 31 months to hit the 200,000 app milestone, but then only four more months to reach 300,000 and another four to hit 400,000. There are now nearly 100,000 active app publishers submitted apps to the Market, which submit an average of 4.1 apps, a number that's down from the 5 app average that we saw a year ago.
So there's your breakfast of hard numbers, Android fans. The version distribution numbers posted by Google aren't a total shock, especially since we've yet to see Ice Cream Sandwich officially hit any devices other than the Galaxy Nexus and Nexus S, but it'll be interesting to watch that number grow in the coming months as more devices come to market with and are updated to ICS. As for the Market's app figures, it makes sense that the number of apps available would grow quickly as the platform's popularity took off. Still, both the 400,000 app figure and the growth of the Market are impressive. The question is, which of the over 400,000 available Android apps are your favorites?
