Only half of Android users migrate to latest versions

Google has said that just over half of the users of its Android mobile operating system are running the latest versions.

Statistics released yesterday reveal that 50.4 percent of devices accessing the Android Market in the past two weeks used Android 2.0 or higher. The figure breaks down as 50 percent Android 2.1, 0.3 percent Android 2.0.1 and 0.1 percent Android 2.0.

The remaining 46.6 percent of Android devices accessing Android Market were evenly split between versions 1.6 and 1.6.

Google released Android 2.0 in October on the back of the Motorola Droid, which has proved to be one of the most popular Android devices to date.

Google made the Android information available to developers to help them prioritise the development of application features for devices currently in use.

But the statistical detail demonstrates how developers have to work across a number of different versions, potentially limiting access to latest application features.

This is particularly problematic given recent research suggesting that developers often have to manage Android, Flash Lite and iPhone, as well as a number of versions of each operating system.

Android 2.2 has just been made available.