The latest Android Distribution report has been released by Google and it shows that Android Nougat made a healthy 1.5% increase in install base over the February report. The bump means that the latest version of Android is now on 2.8% of devices that high the Play Store for the week ending March 6, 2017 but by comparison, it is still well behind the likes of Marshmallow and Lollipop. The increase represents the largest growth version for the report period and is reflective of the significant number of devices that have had their Nougat update come to them over the course of the past few weeks.
Android Lollipop remains the leader as far as install base is concerned, coming in at 34.5% which is a drop of .4% over the February report. Marshmallow is second at 31.3%. That is an increase of .6% for the 6.0 build of Android. Android KitKat saw the largest drop at 1.1% but remains on some 20.8% of devices that came to the Play Store.
While the growth is good, it still shows the challenging facing Android in general with a significant number of devices yet to be updated to the latest, and most secure version of Android. Jellybean, Ice Cream Sandwich and Gingerbread all remain on the report with the later two just making the threshold of 1% to be in the
Android Distribution Report – March 2017
report. Jellybean and its various versions also saw a drop in overall install base.
The jump for Android Nougat was not entirely unexpected. With manufactures continuing to update devices to it, this number will continue to grow. The question is pace of growth which, prior to this month, had been less than 1%. With the likes of the Samsung Galaxy S7 lineup now getting updated here in the United States, the growth is expected to continue.
You can read the full report at on the Android Developer Dashboard.
