Google typically releases its updated Android distribution stats within the first few days of a new month, but apparently El Goog decided to take its sweet time with the numbers this month. The good news is that they’re finally here.
Google gathers these Android distribution numbers by monitoring the devices that access the Google Play Store app during a 7-day period. In this instance, it was the 7-day period ending on December 7. During that time, 0.5 percent of all Android devices that accessed the Google Play Store app were running Android 6.0 Marshmallow, which is up from 0.3 percent last month.
Android 5.0 and 5.1, Lollipop, was on 29.5 percent of devices during the survey period. That’s also an improvement from November, when Lollipop was on 25.6 percent of devices.
Android 4.4 KitKat appeared on 36.6 percent of devices during Google’s 7-day survey period, which is a drop from the 37.8 percent of devices that KitKat appeared on in November. Meanwhile, Android 4.1-4.3 Jelly Bean was on 26.9 percent, down from 29 percent in November. Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich dropped to 2.9 percent.
Rounding out Google’s report is Android 2.3 Gingerbread, which dropped 0.1 percent to a 3.7 percent share of Android devices, and Android 2.2 Froyo, which held steady at 0.2 percent.
So it looks like Lollipop and Marshmallow experienced growth from November to December, while older versions fell in usage. It’s good to see more Android devices running recent versions of the OS, but it’d be better if Marshmallow had a higher adoption rate than 0.5 percent. So far, only Nexus devices and a couple of HTC phones have Marshmallow, but that should change in the next few months as OEMs finish integrating Android 6.0 with their custom software and carriers complete their own testing.
Which versions of Android are you running?
