Android Kit Kat 4.4 hasnow running on 21 per cent of devices and the momentum looks set to continue to gather pace, according to Google.
Android L is set for release later this year, but adoption for KitKat is still rising in the meantime, according to a post on the Android developer site. The 2013 Google OS has reportedly been popular with OEM manufacturers since its release.
KitKat has seen a three per cent risebetween July to August 2014, with data taken over a period of seven days ending on 12 August from devices with the Google Play Store installed.
Though it is still growing, the previous version -Android Jellybean -still occupies 54 per cent (falling from 56.5 per cent) of the market. Froyo caters for 0.7 per cent, Gingerbread for 13.6 per cent and Ice Cream Sandwich for 10.6 per cent.
Android Lwas previewed at Google's 2014 I/O developer conference in June. It is rumoured that the Nexus 6 will be launched alongside the latest OS.
The KitKat 4.4 version of Android was originally due to have a different moniker (Key Lime Pie 5.0). However, Google changed the name after reaching a deal with Nestle, the parent company that makes the chocolate wafer sandwich that shares the same name.
"We realised that very few people actually know the taste of a key lime pie. One of the snacks that we keep in our kitchen for late-night coding are KitKats. And someone said: 'Hey, why don't we call the release KitKat?'" sJohn Lagerling, director of Android global partnerships, said in an interview with the BBCback in September 2013.
"We didn't even know which company controlled the name, and we thought that [the choice] would be difficult. But then we thought well why not, and we decided to reach out to the Nestle folks."
