Android 4.1 Jelly Bean user base grew 1,500% in two months

By Craig Lloyd
on 18 Sep, 2012

Since it’s announcement two months ago, Jelly Bean has seen a spike in its users by a whopping 1,500%. Advertising network and research firm Chitika compiled millions and millions of mobile ad impressions from within its network and calculated that Jelly Bean’s market share was at 0.87% at the end of July. In one month’s time, it shot up to 1.47%.

While 1.47% isn’t anything to write home about, it’s clear that Jelly Bean‘s popularity is slowing taking off. Then again, it’s anyone guess as to what devices will receive Jelly Bean updates and when. While some users are complaining about not yet getting a Jelly Bean update for their device, there are still users who are waiting for an Ice Cream Sandwich update. So while Jelly Bean may be popular, it’s ultimately up to the manufacturers to decide what devices receive Jelly Bean.

A majority of Android users are still on Android 2.3 Gingerbread (57% of Android users, in fact). Gingerbread released in late 2010, so it’s taken almost two years for the already-outdated mobile operating system to reach just over half of all Android users. How long will it take Jelly Bean?

Then again, Jelly Bean early adoption rates are a tad higher than Ice Cream Sandwich’s rates — it took Ice Cream Sandwich three months to reach 1.54% market share. So Jelly Bean is already off to a good start. However, we’ll have to wait and see what these numbers look like a few months from now, and whether or not manufacturers will jump on the Jelly Bean train in a timely manner.

[via BGR]

Hunter Knepshield

I have no idea what calculation you guys are doing, but if jelly bean grew over 1,500%, that would mean the last percentage would be multiplied by 15. The last I checked, .87%*15 does NOT equal 1.47% of android install base. If my math will degrade this much after college, I weep for the future. Computers, physics, biology, chemistry; the whole world is based on math.

By the way, the correct percentage of jelly bean growth is roughly 169%. Take the current percentage divided by the previous percentage and multiply by 100. I.e. 1.47% / .87% * 100 = 169%. Checking work, we can use the percentage (divided by 100) and multiply it by the last month’s numbers to get the current month’s numbers. Let’s try, shall we? 1.69*.87% = 1.47%! Very good!

This is middle school math, guys. I’d personally love to see how you’d do on “Are you smarter than a 5th grader?” after reading this. Before you report something this momentous, have some random high school kid (like me) or college kid check your numbers. Chances are, you’re 1,500% likely to have made a mistake.
- anon
  
  Quite right!
- anon
  
  Quite right!
- Andrew Singleton
  
  You are wrong the 2 percentages you are comparing are two different numbers. First is the 1,500% is related to number of users just on JB so if there were 10 users in July and 150 now that is an increase of 1,500%. Now the .87% to 1.47% is Market share so that looks at all android devices not just one so the reason that this doesn’t increase at the same rate is because people are purchasing and activating non JB devices. So their Math was 100% on you can’t directly compare these numbers side by side.
Hunter Knepshield

I have no idea what calculation you guys are doing, but if jelly bean grew over 1,500%, that would mean the last percentage would be multiplied by 15. The last I checked, .87%*15 does NOT equal 1.47% of android install base. If my math will degrade this much after college, I weep for the future. Computers, physics, biology, chemistry; the whole world is based on math.

By the way, the correct percentage of jelly bean growth is roughly 169%. Take the current percentage divided by the previous percentage and multiply by 100. I.e. 1.47% / .87% * 100 = 169%. Checking work, we can use the percentage (divided by 100) and multiply it by the last month’s numbers to get the current month’s numbers. Let’s try, shall we? 1.69*.87% = 1.47%! Very good!

This is middle school math, guys. I’d personally love to see how you’d do on “Are you smarter than a 5th grader?” after reading this. Before you report something this momentous, have some random high school kid (like me) or college kid check your numbers. Chances are, you’re 1,500% likely to have made a mistake.