Android

Latest figures show a surge in Nougat's share on Android devices

by Alan Friedman / Mar 07, 2017, 9:42 PM

Only 2.8% of Android devices have Nougat installed

The latest Android distribution numbers are here, as they are in the first week of every new month. And once again, some will call them a huge disappointment for Android. Based on the devices that visited the Google Play Store for seven days ended March 6th, Android 7.0 and Android 7.1 combined to appear on only 2.8% of all Android powered models. Those are the latest two builds of Android that are available. But looking at the month-to-month numbers, that is a huge 133% increase from the 1.2% rockin' Nougat in February.

Android 5.0 and Android 5.1 are the versions of the open source OS found the most on active devices. Together, 32.5% of Android phones and tablets have Lollipop installed, off a tad from the 32.9% tallied last month. That is followed by the 31.3% of Android devices with Marshmallow 6.0 running the show. In February, that build had a 30.7% share.

Android 4.4 KitKat remains fairly popular with 20.8% of the Android OS pie. Jelly Bean comes next with 10.8%, followed by Ice Cream Sandwich and Gingerbread, both still on 1% of Android devices.

Over the next few months, we should see Android 7.0 and Android 7.1 pick up more share as new flagships start to get released with the build pre-installed on these new models out of the box.

source: AndroidDevelopers via Droid-Life

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18 Comments

1. BoiledCabbage

Posts: 8; Member since: Dec 29, 2016

That's because I bought one S7 edge yesterday.

posted on Mar 07, 2017, 9:46 PM 4

4. sgodsell

Posts: 7217; Member since: Mar 16, 2013

A number of new smartphones arrived on the market with Android 7.1. Not to mention a number of older devices were upgraded to the latest version of Android.

posted on Mar 07, 2017, 10:08 PM 0

7. trojan_horse

Posts: 5868; Member since: May 06, 2016

Pretty much it. However, the good old KitKat still has it going at too, though Marshmallow rules it all.

posted on Mar 07, 2017, 10:27 PM 0

12. sgodsell

Well considering 1.27 billion Android smartphones sold last year (2016) alone, nevermind this year. Not to mention how many previous Android smartphones were already out in the wild before last year. So it could be 60 million or more Android smartphones that currently have Android Nougat now.

posted on Mar 08, 2017, 12:01 AM 0

2. MKeditor

Posts: 97; Member since: Dec 10, 2010

Nougat not on S7 Edge Sm-935U.

posted on Mar 07, 2017, 9:47 PM 1

3. talon95

Posts: 994; Member since: Jul 31, 2012

I just got the Google Assistant OTA for the T-mo S7e.

posted on Mar 07, 2017, 9:55 PM 0

5. kiko007

Posts: 7493; Member since: Feb 17, 2016

Define "surge" for me please. Because from where I stand, the term is being grossly misused here lol...

posted on Mar 07, 2017, 10:12 PM 0

6. FlySheikh

Posts: 444; Member since: Oct 02, 2015

I was expecting at least 10%.

posted on Mar 07, 2017, 10:20 PM 0

8. trojan_horse

"I was expecting at least 10%." What was your 10% Nougat expectation based on? An analysis research? I guess not.

posted on Mar 07, 2017, 10:34 PM 0

11. FlySheikh

You guessed right but considering that a lot of new devices shipped with 7.1 the numbers should be higher.

posted on Mar 07, 2017, 11:39 PM 0

13. sgodsell

If you actually examined those percentages, then you would realize that there is around 2 billion Android smartphones or more that people are using. Just look at last year (2016) alone, 1.27 billion Android smartphones sold. Before that (2015) almost 1 billion Android smartphones sold. So how many were sold this year? How many are currently in use? So just looking at those numbers could mean 70 million or more Android smartphones that currently have Android Nougat.

posted on Mar 08, 2017, 12:22 AM 0

15. FlySheikh

That is a pretty small number.

posted on Mar 08, 2017, 2:07 AM 0

9. gdawilson

Posts: 299; Member since: Jul 21, 2014

Welcome to Android: Don't expect the newest OS to be on all, supported, phones until (AT LEAST) 6 months after it's release. I'd like to see a figure of how many devices are running each individual Android OS That's one thing I don't like about owning an Android phone. You can only expect 2 years worth of coverage (OS upgrades, security updates, etc.). I wish Google would manufacture their own in-house chip; revive their Nexus line, and keep updating them like Apple updating their older gen. of iPhone's.

posted on Mar 07, 2017, 11:12 PM 1

10. cnour

Posts: 2305; Member since: Sep 11, 2014

That is why buying an Android phone is the definition of stupidity.

posted on Mar 07, 2017, 11:38 PM 0

14. Feanor

Posts: 1346; Member since: Jun 20, 2012

Dude, I have two Android phones and an iPhone. Even if they ran on Lollipop (they don't, they're actually in 7.1 and 7.0 respectively), they would still have a better keyboard with better autocorrect, tidier settings menu, more active notifications and much more than my up-to-date iOS 10 rocking iPhone. Fact is fact. You may clamour about Apple devices being always updated or more secure, but Android is still the more feature-rich, functional OS for everyday operation.