14 DAY TRIAL // Each month Google releases statistics that show the Android distribution among different versions of the operating system. For the last few years, KitKat and Lollipop have been reported to the highest market share, but that will surely change in the coming months.
Android 6.0 Marshmallow is meant to replace both KitKat and Lollipop, but sadly, that will not happen for a while. In the last couple of months, Android 6.0 Marshmallow did not manage to rise above 1% market share.
Last month, Google reported Marshmallow's market share is close to 0.7%, so we assumed that February would be the first month when Android 6.0 would go above the 1% mark.
Today, the search giant has confirmed that Android 6.0 Marshmallow now has 1.2% market share, which is 0.5% more than last year's numbers.
That makes Marshmallow the second lowest distribution among Android smartphones and tablets that accessed Google Play Store in a 7-day period ending February 1.
Android 2.2 Froyo is now the lowest distribution with 0.1%, down from 0.2%, but that makes perfect sense since this version of Android was launched back in 2010.
Android Lollipop market share continues to increase
Unsurprisingly, Android Lollipop market share increases once again to 34.1% from 32.6%. Most handset makers continue to launch smartphones powered by Android Lollipop, even though Marshmallow is now the latest version of the OS.
The vast majority of new launches in the low- and mid-range tier consists of Lollipop devices, which is why this particular distribution will continue to grow.
It looks like Marshmallow is still a thing that mobile phone vendors are saving for their high-end smartphone. Because of that, Android 6.0 market share won't increase too much until more mid-range and budget-friendly smartphones adopt the newest version of the OS.
On a side note, all the other Android distributions included in the statistics dropped in market share, which is another sign they will become obsolete very soon.
