Lollipop (Android 5.0, 5.1) is now installed on 18.1% of Android devices

It's a new month, and you know what that means. The latest distribution numbers for Android's different builds are now in. With 15.5% of Android devices running on Android 5.0, and 2.6% equipped with Android 5.1, the Lollipop build of Google's open source OS can be found on 18.1% of Android flavored devices. That is a gain of 5.7 percentage points from last month. The percentage of Android devices powered by Android 4.4 KitKat actually rose by the smallest of margins, .1 percentage point from the last report, to 39.3%.

After KitKat, Android 4.1-Android 4.3 Jelly Bean was next with 33.6% of Android devices. With Lollipop third, Gingerbread was fourth. Covering Android 2.3.3 to Android 2.3.7, the build is still driving 4.6% of phones and tablets running on the platform. Ice Cream Sandwich (Android 4.0.3-Android 4.0.4, 4.1%) and Froyo (Android 2.2, .3%) round out the remaining builds.

The data comes from visitors to the Google Play Store over a seven-day period ended today. By the way, to show you how many years some of the older builds have been around, consider that more than five years ago, we were talking about a Froyo soak test for the Motorola DROID. That update allowed Android owners to see Flash animation when using the browser, which was a big deal at the time.

The next month should see Lollipop take some more share away from KitKat as more phones are updated, and newer models come with Android 5.1 right out of the box.


source: Android via MobileSyrup