A cornerstone of Chitika Insights has been our insights on mobile OS fragmentation. As indicated two months ago, Gingerbread showed a modest early showing, grabbing a mere 0.338% of all Android OS impressions within the Chitika network.

Last week, Dan Ruby published a breakdown of iOS fragmentation for the iPhone and iPad; unsurprisingly, iOS 4.2.1 shot up on both devices.

The iPhone’s 4.2.1 share jumped from 38% in our January study to 57% last week, and the iPad followed suit with a jump from 61% to 74%. It is logical to think that a newer release will continue to grow until yet another new release is made, and that Gingerbread on Android would be gaining momentum, but as a check of our US and Canadian traffic shows, it is not the case:

While Android 1.5 and 1.6 are both unsurprisingly down from two months ago, it has been Froyo that continues to gain the Android market share. Released on December 6th, 2010, Gingerbread continues to hover at slightly below 1% of the Android OS market. Contrastingly, Android 2.2 and 2.2.1 are still dominant, with over 89% of the Android devices seen by Chitika, though 2.2.1 has taken over as the plurality.

Curious as to what devices actually ran Gingerbread, Chitika Insights took a deeper look into the version of the OS. Interestingly, the top device running Android 2.3 is the Nexus One, a device mentioned in less than flattering terms just last week:

With Ice Cream Sandwich likely to be released in the summer, the chances of Gingerbread taking up a significant portion of the Android market seems slim. Android’s Honeycomb tablet OS continues to grow, however, and Chitika will be sure to keep track of trends and changes over the network.

Android OS

< 1.5    0.040%
1.5    3.506%
1.6    3.564%
2.1    1.930%
2.2    43.315%
2.2.1    45.936%
2.3    0.956%
2.other    0.096%
3.0    0.657%

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