Last month, we saw that Jelly Bean had finally overtaken Gingerbread as the most dominant Android operating system on the market. The slow death of Gingerbread has been well documented over the last year, but it looks like Jelly Bean is really starting to pick up the pace.

In the latest Android distribution numbers for the end of July, it’s revealed that the first iteration of Jelly Bean – Android 4.1 – is on more devices than Gingerbread. Last month, it took the combined efforts of both Android 4.1 and 4.2 to dethrone Android 2.3.

Getting into specifics, Jelly Bean as a whole is now on 40.5 percent of all Android devices. I wouldn’t be surprised to see it on over 50 percent of all Android devices at the end of August. Ice Cream Sandwich and Gingerbread continue to cede ground to Jelly Bean as both have dropped to 22.5 percent and 33.1 percent marketshare respectively.

Next month will see the debut of Android 4.3 in the distribution numbers. You can expect the numbers to be pretty low as only Nexus devices will have been upgraded by then. Many handset manufacturers are still working on upgrading their devices to Android 4.2 so it will be a while before we see Android 4.3 gain any prominence.

Of course, the distribution numbers also tell us that we may be getting closer to the launch of Android 5.0, or Key Lime Pie. Google can only refine Jelly Bean so much. As more people adopt the latest OS, they’ll want something new. That something new may just be found in Key Lime Pie.