Google has released the December 2017 Android Distribution Report this week. The report reflects the version of Android on devices that visited the Google Play Store for the 7 day period ending January 8, 2018 and it shows that while Android Oreo was only one of two versions that saw growth for the reporting period, that growth is anemic. And that is putting it nicely.
Oreo gained just .2% in this month’s report, with both 8.0 and 8.1 accounting for a total of just .7% of device share. The only other gainer in the report, Android Nougat, gained 3% and now sits at 26.3% for device share. That moves Nougat into second behind Android Marshmallow as the most widely used version of the platform.
While Android Gingerbread and Ice Cream Sandwich saw no gain or drop, Oreo did finally pass both of them in the January report. Gingerbread sits at .4% while Ice Cream Sandwich sits at .5%. All other versions saw drops this month with Lollipop taking the biggest drop.
January 2018 Android Distribution Report
The challenge for Google remains in getting manufactures to update their devices to Android Oreo. While some have been pushing to get their Oreo updates out, the progress is slow and manufactures have little incentive to provide updates beyond customer satisfaction with their brand. Ultimately Project Treble should help the situation but that is unlikely to make any reasonable dent in the problem until Android P later this year.
