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KitKat is now running on more than 20 percent of Android devices

In case there was any doubt that KitKat now has a solid foothold in the Android world, Google just offered some proof. Its usage data for early August shows that KitKat is on more than a fifth of active Android devices, at 20.9 percent. That's a healthy improvement over July (17.9 percent), and a big leap over the 14.9 percent we saw in June. The folks in Mountain View aren't explaining the steady growth, but it's easy to figure out what's going on -- big-name devices like the LG G3 and Samsung Galaxy Tab S are bringing this latest OS flavor to a wider audience, and many older gadgets are still getting upgrades.

To no one's surprise, that surge is coming at the expense of older releases. Every pre-KitKat version has declined, and Ice Cream Sandwich is only just floating above the 10 percent mark; at its current rate, it's going to (finally) reach the single digits very soon. Whether or not KitKat ever reaches the majority is another matter. Android L is just a few months away, and it's a big enough update that its predecessor might not grow quickly for much longer.

Android version share, August 2014