A recent Nielson report informs us of the increasing popularity of Android among recent smartphone buyers. It reported that almost 40 percent of recent customers have purchased Android phones in the last six months. On the other hand, figures for the same period show Apple’s share as 26.9 percent and RIM Blackberry as 19.2 percent.

Although the figures are quite impressive for Android phones, Apple remains the overall leader. Android’s operating system has an overall share of 25.8% and is still behind Apple iOS- 28.6%. RIM is also leading over Android, but has somehow ambiguous position and has a share of 26.1%. that within the margin of error of both Apple iOS and Android. It clearly shows that Android OS is growing at a fast pace but hasn’t reached the same level of success as smartphones just yet.

Android OS is currently fragmented, and that could cause problems in their rate of adoption. For example,  Honeycomb is not expected to be available for upcoming tablets. As of now, Honeycomb is runs on nothing less than a dual core ARM Cortex-A9 processor and may demand an uber-high screen resolution set at 1,280×720.

“Honeycomb will be reserved, at least initially, for high-spec models such as the Motorola tablet, LG’s rumored tablet, and the Toshiba tablet,” speculated PC World’s Sascha Segan. “With their Cortex-A8 processors and 1,024×600 screens, the popular Samsung Galaxy Tab line of Android tablets run ‘Froyo’ (Android 2.2) and can be updated to Gingerbread, 2.3, but not Honeycomb.”

In spite of all this, tablet expectations are still high, with companies like Amazon anxious to release Android tablet apps such as the Kindle e-reader app. This app is specifically suited to Android-based tablets and will be released later in 2011. While no exact timescale has been given for its release, it’s clear that Amazon’s set on making its Kindle app as readily accessible as possible.