Nearly 18 months after its official launch, Android 7.0 Nougat has become the most popular Android version. Google published its monthly analysis of Android market share, and the latest distribution charts show that Android Nougat has taken the crown surpassing Marshmallow, the previous leader in the market. The Android Nougat now comprises 28.5% of the overall market share while Android Marshmallow dropped down to 28.1%. Both Android Marshmallow and Nougat make up for the half of Android world because they were the most popular Android versions of all time.
Coming back to Nougat, the Nougat 7.0 version takes up a larger share with 22.3%, and Nougat 7.1 has 6.2% market share. Nougat has seen a steady growth over past few months. The Android 7.0 and Android 7.1 combined were at 20.6% in November, 23.3% in December and 26.3 percent in January. So manufacturers are still pushing out Nougat update to their phones.
As for the Google’s latest Android 8.0 Oreo release, it is ever so slowly improving its numbers ever since its initial release last August. In fact, this month is has broken the 1% milestone, now running in 1.1% of devices. The Android Oreo 8.0 is on 0.8% devices, while the latest Oreo 8.1 version is on 0.3% devices.
This is slightly better than last month where Oreo accounted for only 0.7% of all active devices. Things are likely to improve further, as companies like Honor, Motorola, Samsung, etc. are still testing out the latest version for many of their phones. Also with MWC 2018 around the corner, the numbers are expected to rise since more devices will ship will Oreo out of the box.
Other data from Google’s Android Dashboard suggests Android 5.0 Lollipop still commands 24.6% of the market at this time with Android 5.0 version on 5.4% of phones and Android 5.1 on 19.2% of phones. The Android KitKat 4.4 version is powering around 12% devices. Android Jelly Bean has combined 5% share, the Ice Cream Sandwich powers 1.4% devices, while seven-year-old Android Gingerbread is on 0.3% of devices.
