Android Nougat was released towards the end of 2016 but since then, its market share has been below 10% until now. This is according to the latest Android distribution stats that Google has released. The company releases these stats at the beginning of every month and the latest ones show that Android 7.0 and 7.1 have been installed in 11.5% of all Android smartphones.
This is a 2% increase from last month when Nougat’s market share was at 9.5%. We sort of expected Android Nougat’s share to increase as more and more devices released this year come with the OS pre-installed and some of the existing devices on the market get updated. Even with that said, we are a couple of months to the official unveiling of Android O and to see Nougat’s share still at 11.5% is not impressive. At this point, we should be seeing its market share at 20% or more in my opinion. Either way, seeing it rise is still a good thing.
The most popular Android version is Marshmallow with 31.8% market share. This is a 0.6% rise from last month when its market share was at 31.2%. Android Marshmallow was released back in 2015 and has been around for about 20 months (less than two years). Going forward, I expect its market share to start going down as we get close to the official release of Android O.
Android Lollipop is the second most popular version with a market share of 30.1% a slight drop from last month when it was at 30.8%. Lollipop’s market share has been on a downward trajectory for the last couple of months and I expect it to be the case going forward. Within the last 30 days, it lost 0.7% share and the previous month it lost 1.2%.
Android distribution July 2017
The third widely used version is Android KitKat at 17.1%, this is a drop from 18.1% last month. For a version that was released back in 2013, KitKat just refuses to go away, a drop of 1% isn’t something to be proud of. At this point, we should be seeing its market share drop by at least 2.5% month over month.
Some of the other old Android versions that have refused to die include Jelly Bean with an 8.1% market share, Ice Cream Sandwich at 0.7% and Gingerbread at 0.7 too.
Going forward, expect most of the old Android versions from Lollipop see their market share drop, Marshmallow may maintain its lead a bit but will also start dropping and Nougat will rise as Android O is unveiled.
Also Read: Google To Drop Support For The Android Market On Android Version 2.1 And Older
