Google has released the Android distribution numbers for June 2016, and the breakdown makes for interesting reading.
Android Distribution Numbers for June 2016
Every month Google releases the stats which indicate the percentages of users running a version of Android and using the Google Play Store. This is useful to developers (and testers) because it helps them understand the potential addressable market their app may be running on, and what tools and services may be used by those users.
This month Android 6 Marshmallow has passed the 10% mark of Google Play Store users. Historically, for the most recent version of Android this is pretty good going. Android 5.0 and 5.1 Lollipop are 35.4% of users, so overall almost half of the market could be exposed to Material Design (if only all those custom builds of Android didn’t paint over it with their own UI design).
Android 4.4 Kitkat is used by 31.6% of Google Play Store users, Jellybean (4.1, 4.2, 4.3) is used by 18.9% of users and the rest of the crumbs go to 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich (1.9%) and 2.3 Gingerbread (2%). A measly 0.1% of Google Play Store users is still using Android 2.2 Froyo.
It is important to remember that these Android distribution numbers only cover Google Play Store users. In many markets in Asia, like China, the Google Play Store is not officially available and many users use their network provider’s app store or their phone manufacturer’s store. It would be interesting to have the similar data from Xiaomi, Huawei and others regarding their own app store percentages of running Android versions.
It will be interesting to see how quickly things change in the coming months just before the launch of the yet unnamed Android N. Can Marshmallow reach almost a third of Google Play Store users before the next version of android is officially released? We’ll keep you updated here on Coolsmartphone.com.