The August batch of Android distribution numbers for 2018 are in, and Android Pie is nowhere in sight, Android Oreo is up to 14.6 percent, but Android Nougat remains king.
The newest batch of Android distribution numbers of 2018 are in, and Android Pie is nowhere in sight despite rolling out to Pixel and Essential handsets at the beginning of August. As a version of Android has to be installed on at least 0.1 percent of all active devices before it’s included in this report, we will have to wait until more OEMs roll out the firmware upgrade to see Android 9 Pie reflected in the numbers.
Android Oreo (both 8.0 and 8.1) is now installed on 14.6 percent of all Android devices which is up 2.5 percent from the last distribution report. Judging by Google’s official statistics, Android distribution numbers are heading in the right direction — Oreo installs are rising, while every other flavor of the operating system saw a decrease in installations other than Nougat which remains at 30.8 percent.
While Android Nougat’s overall percentage remained the same, Android 7.0 saw a 0.9 percent drop which was then matched by a 0.9 percent increase in Android 7.1. While this doesn’t help dethrone Nougat as the most installed version of Android, at least more users are slowly getting newer versions of the operating system.
All other Android versions saw a decrease since the last distribution report. Marshmallow is down to 22.7 percent, Lollipop is down to 19.2 percent, and KitKat is down to 8.6 percent. Jelly Bean is down to 2.5 percent, and Ice Cream Sandwich and Gingerbread both are at 0.3 percent.
The fact that over 87.3 percent of Android devices are now on Lollipop or later is terrific news, as devices on older operating systems are much more vulnerable to security threats.
From KitKat, to Lollipop, to Marshmallow, and to Nougat, each new version of Android seemed to hit fewer devices and do so in a slower fashion (see the chart below). However, with this giant increase in Oreo numbers after only two months in mind, could it be that Google has finally lit a fire when it comes to OEM’s issuing more timely updates to devices?
However, we also know that people are holding onto their phones for longer periods of time, which means the number of active devices running older versions of Android stays high. As the price of flagship phones continues to rise, this could slow the rate of Android adoption rate even further as fewer and fewer devices with old software versions stay in service.
Furthermore, there are still Android devices launching without the latest version of Android out of the box, attributable to the rise of lower-cost Chinese devices and increased market growth in developing countries.
However, the increased rate of release for major Android versions may be one of the big reasons for the shape of the graph above. Jelly Bean was out for about 16 months before KitKat arrived. KitKat stuck around for slightly over a year followed by Lollipop which just scraped past 11 months before Marshmallow hit the scene. Then Marshmallow was only out for ten and a half months before Nougat showed up in mid-August. Oreo is the only software version to buck the trend, releasing almost a year to the day after Nougat. Shorter OS version shelf lives equal lower market penetration.
According to a recent AMA with the Android development team, Android versions will stick to an annual schedule going forward. Hopefully, this will result in less fragmentation.
The other key factor here is that each new Android version arrives with more Android devices in circulation, meaning its immediate impact is decreasing. When all of the major OEMs got their flagships up and running with Ice Cream Sandwich, it represented a significant share of Android phones because there were far fewer of them. There are more than two billion monthly active Android devices in use now, so there is simply more ground for the latest Android version to cover.
Being on the latest version of Android isn’t as important as it once was, though. With Play Services, for instance, Google can push out important updates to just about every Android device without the need to bake it into Android (thus requiring an entire software update). Plus, a good amount of OEMs have been focusing on rolling out the latest Android security patches to their devices, which means Android phones aren’t as vulnerable to attacks as they once were.
