The latest figures from Android Developers is that Android 4, Ice Cream Sandwich and Jelly Bean, now has almost 40% share of the market and Gingerbread has fallen below 50%.

Even though Jelly Bean is undoubtedly being held back by the scarcity of Google Nexus devices with demand currently outstripping supply it continues to increase its share. Android 4.2 is now has a 1.2% share of the market, pushing the Jelly Bean total to 10.2%.

(click on chart to open full version)

The figures in the following table are based on the number of Android devices that have accessed Google Play in the 14-day period ending on January 3, 2013. Compared to the last time we reported on Android distribution, Cupcake has disappeared from the table and Froyo has dipped below 10%.

Representing the data in a chart shows that Gingerbread has less than half of the pie while between them Ice Cream Sandwich and Jelly Bean account for almost 40%.

It is to be hoped that as more Nexus phones become available, users of the earliest versions will upgrade to gain the benefits of the latest operating system. It looks as though developing for Gingerbread and ICS is the best policy for the moment but in most cases you can now ignore earlier versions of Android unless you have the time to cover the entire market.