Google shouldn’t be thrilled with this month’s results for the Android distribution numbers. While the older versions are still fading away and Oreo is making its first appearance, the latest version of Android is barely on any Android devices around the world. Marshmallow, meanwhile, remains the most popular version. There continues to be an issue getting Android devices onto Nougat at the very least even as Oreo arrives.
These are the percentage point changes from last month:
- Oreo: +0.2%
- Nougat: +2%
- Marshmallow: -0.2%
- Lollipop: -1.1%
- KitKat: -0.6%
- Jelly Bean: -0.3%
- Ice Cream Sandwich: no change
- Gingerbread: no change
It was released two years ago and has faced declines in recent months, but Marshmallow is still on 32 percent of Android devices. Nougat keeps shipping on new devices yet stands below 18 percent today. The struggle for Nougat and now Oreo to break through is because such a large number of devices in different segments are easily compatible with Marshmallow. The software from 2015 targeted low-end and mid-range hardware just as much as it did high-end hardware.
Although Marshmallow clings on for the lead, Google can take a victory in seeing the pre-2015 versions of Android continue declining.
Welcome, Oreo!
Oreo’s arrival on the Android distribution numbers this month brings both good and bad news. The good news is that the latest version of Android is finally here. However, the bad news is that Oreo is limited to Google’s hardware more than a month after its release. Not a single non-Google device has Oreo. So that’s why Oreo is on just 0.2 percent of Android devices.
The disappointingly-low percentage does indicate that Google has sold less than 4 million units of the Pixel. We know that only Google’s Pixel and Nexus devices have Oreo. We also know that there are over 2 billion Android devices in the world today. Simple math gets us to 4 million devices with Oreo, all of which belong to Google.
After seeing these results, Apple will get to have another laugh. It doesn’t deal with fragmentation anywhere close to this. When a new version of iOS launches, it’s on the majority of phones and tablets within a matter of days and weeks. Google, though, can’t even get devices off of a version that came out in 2015.
