These are the 5 most popular devices from each major Android manufacturer in 2015

With billions of Android smartphone sold on a yearly basis nowadays, you can imagine that tracking sales data is kind of tricky, even if yours is an agency dedicated to this kind of research. Indeed, if any one company on the planet has a good idea as to the volume split between manufacturers, but also between their various models, in terms of popularity, it's Google. And yet, even if Google does have such data, it's not making any of it public.

OpenSignal, a very popular cell tower/Wi-Fi hotspot mapping app (up to 50 million downloads), is, however. Indeed, the folks behind the app have tracked the last 682,000 downloads of its app ending August 2015, and calculated the most popular devices for each manufacturer. Obviously, this is not a perfectly representative sample, and we can't claim that they are, but the sample is still more than impressive enough for the results to be taken seriously.

Here's whats hot with each maker:

With more than a 250 different models recorded, Samsung is, unsurprisingly, at the top of the food chain as far as Android device sales are concerned. Interestingly enough, while the majority of other manufacturers on the list feature low-end/relatively obscure devices in their Top 5 grab, Samsung's is almost exclusively about flagships.

Next up in terms of popularity are LG's handsets, of which OpenSignal has recorded over 150 different models of. Most of them are lower-end phones, though the top two slots are occupied by flagships:

Sony's count came out a little shy of 100 devices, which is still plenty. Like Samsung, the Japanese smartphone maker's flagship devices is where it's at with the majority of consumers:

Motorola managed a little over 50 devices, but unlike the rest of the makers on our radar today, its list of most popular devices is entirely comprised of low-end devices! Take a look:

HTC managed to land some 60+ devices, all of differing model. The number one spot is reserved for last year's flagship, the One M8, and previous top-shelfers:

Some 70+ Huawei devices made it to the list, lead by affordable models. A few past flaghips — including the Huawei Ascend P7 — also made it to the Top 5, however:

Google's Nexus line, while relatively tiny, still has a few models to offer to the public, and in terms of critical success, Nexus-branded devices have been very well-received. Here are the most popular of them in 2015: