Google used to give us the data of the distribution of Android versions on active mobiles on a monthly basis, until suddenly it stopped doing so. We were promised that the data would still be available in Android Studio, where it was updated once a year ago and no more. More than a year later, Google has finally updated Android version distribution data.
With such a prolonged information drought, it is difficult to evaluate the evolution of Android, although there are things that never change: Android 12 does not appear and Android 11 is in one of every four devices, more than a year after its launch.
The most used version is Android 10
Google continues to play tricks with the distribution data for Android versions, which were previously available in this control panel and updated monthly, until Google began to be lazy and, finally, stopped updating it completely.
This data is important for application developers, as it is useful to choose the minimum version of Android that they want to support and how many potential users will be left out, so that Google promised that it would continue to provide the data, but within Android Studio. So it was, with a single update in April 2020. 584 days later, we have the second update.
Android Studio displays the data with figures of cumulative distribution, which indicate what current percentage of users an application will work on based on each version of the API. This metric is good for programmers, although not so good for seeing the state of Android fragmentation. Luckily, we can get a percentage per version with a calculator and some patience.
In 2021, Ice Cream Sandwich is already dropped from the list, which has therefore fallen below 0.1% of the total, like the initial version of Jelly Bean, Android 4.1. Android 11 is in 24.3% of devices and Android 10 is the most used version, accounting for 26.5% of the total number of active mobiles at the time Google took the figure.
Android 12 not listed, which is to be expected since the launch is still very recent, the data may have been taken a long time ago and the number of active Android devices is enormous (more than 3,000 million), so the few phones that have already been updated, Mainly the Google Pixel, they fail to scratch the 0.1% necessary to get on the list.
Android version | Percentage |
---|---|
JELLY BEAN (4.1 – 4.3) | 0.4% |
KITKAT (4.4) | 1.4% |
LOLLIPOP (5.0 – 5.1) | 3.9% |
MARSHMALLOW (6.0) | 5.1% |
NOUGAT (7.0 – 7.1) | 6.3% |
OREO (8.0 – 8.1) | 13.7% |
FOOT (9.0) | 18.2% |
ANDROID 10 (10.0) | 26.5% |
ANDROID 11 (10.0) | 24.3% |
Google has made it very difficult to compare the deployments of the different versions of Android, since we have basically been blind throughout the entire deployment of Android 11. The last time it shared data on a similar date was in October 2018, where The latest version did not appear on the list either and the previous version, Android Oreo, reaped 21.5%. It could be said then that Android 11 deployment is a little better than Oreo, but nothing spectacular.
Android 10 and Android 11 add up to 50.8% of all active Android devices, which is not bad at all
The good news is that the two most recent versions, not counting Android 12, share half the pie, so half of the active terminals have a moderately current version. Now we only need to know if Google is going to leave us and the application developers blind for another year or if it will proceed to update the data more frequently. Meanwhile, we leave you the ranking of the most used versions of Android in November 2021:
Android 10 – 26.5%
Android 11 – 24.3%
Android Pie – 18.2%
Android Oreo – 13.7%
Android Nougat – 6.3%
Android Marshmallow – 5.1%
Android Lollipop – 3.9%
Android KitKat – 1.4%
Android Jelly Bean – 0.4%