14 DAY TRIAL // Every month, Google releases its Android Distribution numbers chart, revealing which is the dominant version among all Android-running smartphones. This month’s numbers show that Nougat continues to grow and is nearing the 5% mark.
Android 7.0 and 7.1 Nougat now account for 4.9% of the market, while Gingerbread and Ice Cream Sandwich have a market share of 0.9% each, down from 1.0% last month. 7.0 Nougat grew significantly since last month by 2.1%, while 7.1 Nougat maintained its share of 0.4%.
But considering that Nougat has been around for about seven months, the 5% share of the market is rather weak. Still, Nougat will surely increase its share, considering that OEMs and carriers continue to update smartphones to the latest Android version or launch new devices to the market, many of them running the latest Android version.
In addition, Google has already released the first preview version of Android O, while the stable version should arrive later this year. The introduction of a new Android version means that Gingerbread will soon exit the chart, when it reaches a market share of less than 0.1%.
The same happened with Froyo, which wasn’t included in the distribution numbers for January. Perhaps Gingerbread will be removed from the chart in the last month of 2017 or the first of 2018.
Android Lollipop dominates the market of Android-running devices
Android Lollipop continues to be the most popular version among smartphones, running on 32% of all Android devices, but it decreased by 0.2% compared to March. Jelly Bean currently holds a market share of 10.1%, down 0.5% since last month.
KitKat is another Android version that decreased in the past month, from 20.8% in March to a share of 20.0%, while Marshmallow saw a 0.1% decrease to 31.2% after some smartphones received updates to the latest Android version. Google collected the latest distribution numbers during a 7-day period ending April 3, 2017.