Today, Google has published the latest distribution figures of the Android operating system which ran over a 7-day period. The numbers reveal a consistent growth in the amount of Android users running Jelly Bean, whilst older versions of the OS continue on their path towards extinction. As anticipated, this months results also show a small amount of users running the latest software version, Android 4.4 KitKat.

This data was collected by recording which operating systems customers were running when they accessed the Google Play Store over a 7-day period ending on December 1, 2013. This consequently gives Google an insight as to which version of Android is running on active devices all around the world. The team at Mountain View then break down this information and condense it into a pie chart for us comb through.

At first glance, it quickly becomes apparent that Cupcake, Donut and Eclair are missing from the chart. This does not mean that they are now extinct, in fact, they are absent because these versions of the Android operating system can no longer use the updated version of the Play Store, however, Google did mention that “versions older than Android 2.2 accounted for about 1% of the devices that checked in to Google servers.”

The above figures clearly show that Honeycomb 3.2 is almost at the point of extinction, holding just 0.1% of the Android market for the seventh month running. Froyo appears to have decreased very slightly, measuring in at 1.6% of the market distribution — that’s a 0.1% decrease from last months 1.7%.

Quite a few Android users are still running Gingerbread (Versions 2.3.3 – 2.3.7), but the distribution firgures for the OS has taken a turn for the worst. Last month, the amount of consumers running Gingerbread weighed in at 26.3%, however, this month they’re down to 24.1%. That’s a 2.1% decrease.

The amount of users running Ice Cream Sandwich appears to have decreased rather slightly, with market distribution dropping down to 18.6% – which is a 1.2% decrease from last months 19.8%.

This data irrefutably exhibits that Jelly Bean is the only version of the open-source operating system to face an adequate increase in users over the course of the past month; as it now holds 54.5% of the entire market – which is a whopping 2.4% increase over last months 52.1%.

It’s clear that Android 4.0+ continues to dominate the entire market share for the sixth month in a row, with 73.1% of all active Android users running Ice Cream Sandwich or Jelly Bean, and now that KitKat has joined the party (1.1% distribution) the figures for Android 4.0 and above can only continue to increase.

• SourceAndroid Developer Dashboard