Category: Android Distribution Report

Late yesterday, Google released the latest Android Distribution Report and it is one of the more positive reports in a while.  While Android Oreo did not make its debut in the report, Android Nougat gained 2.3% in overall install base for this month’s report and was the only version of Android that saw gains.

The distribution report looked at devices coming to the Google Play Store for the 7-day period ending September 11, 2017.  For that time, Android Nougat was seen on 15.8% of devices, an increase of 2.3% over the August report.  That makes Nougat third most installed of Android flavors, behind Marshmallow (32.2%) and Lollipop (28.8%).  Nougat jumped ahead of the long loved KitKat version which now sits at 15.1%.  Jelly Bean continues to hang on at 6.9% while Ice Cream Sandwich and Gingerbread continue to fall, both down to just .6% of devices.

The August edition of the Android Distribution Report was released last yesterday and there are a fair number of positives to take away from it.  For the 7 day period ending August 8, 2017, Android Nougat was on 13.5% of devices that visited the Google Play Store during that time.  That is up 2% over the July report which is steady growth.  Android Marshmallow was the only other version of the platform to gain usage during this month’s report.  Version 6.x of Android was up to 32.3%, an increase of .5% over July.

Combined, the last two versions of Android are on 45.7% of devices hitting the play store.  That’s well below what it should be for sure but it is a significant increase over the course of 2017.  Still, it does speak to the challenge facing the platform and hopefully Project Treble will make an impact in 2018 on the latest version of Android being on more devices.

Google has released the June Android Distribution Report and it continues to show a picture of challenges.  Android Nougat gained 2.4% over the May report but it still sits below 10% of the total install base of device that hit the Play Store for the week ending June 5, 2017.  That is a very slow adoption rate for a platform that has been out for 8 months and one that its successor, Android O, is already in the beta channels.

Equally as challenging is that Android Marshmallow remained at 31.2% of the install base, the exact same number it has had for three reports running.  Android Lollipop, version 5.x, dropped to 30.8% this month, down from last month’s 32%.  If there is a positive in all of this it is that the last three versions of Android are on 71.5% of all devices hitting the Play Store, but that is covering nearly 3 years of Android builds.

Google has released their monthly Android Distribution Report for May and it shows that Android Nougat continues to grow.  The latest version of Android accounted for 7.1% of devices that hit the Google Play Store in the week ending May 2, 2017.  That is up 2.2% from the April report.  While it is still not ideal to have the latest-and-greatest version at sub-10%, Nougat has continued to grow steadily over the past several months.  This, of course, has been helped by the larger number of devices either getting updated to Nougat or new devices like the LG G6 and Samsung Galaxy S8 lineup shipping with it.

Interestingly, both Android Marshmallow and Lollipop remained steady to the April report.  Marshmallow had a 31.2% install base while Lollipop kept its 32% base.  Android KitKat continued to drop, losing 1.2% in this months report.  That version is down to 18.8% now while Jelly Bean and Ice Cream Sandwich both lost 1%.  Gingerbread continues to hold on and actually gained .1% this month.  Go figure.