Android December Distribution Numbers: Lollipop On Top, Nougat At 0.4 Percent & Marshmallow At 26 Percent

Google's Android  7.0 operating system or Nougat, is still much behind Android 6.0 or Marshmallow, latest Android December dstribution numbers revealed. According to data made available by Google Play Distribution, the latest version of Android is being used only on 0.4 percent of devices. These latest figures show an increase of just 0.1 percent since the month of November. Marshmallow, on the other hand, is being used on 26 percent of active Android devices.

Android Nougat was released during the last week of August this year and its roll-out to devices has been somewhat slow. The slow reaction to the update and the adoption of Nougat has made Marshmallow the most used version of Android on smart-phones as of today.  The new data made available by Google is the last such report of 2016. The statistics were gathered from Android phones which used the Google Play store app from Nov 28 to Dec 5. The app is only supported by phones which run on Android 2.2 or above.

In spite of the latest data, Nougat's market share is slated to increase in the coming year. Companies like Sony and Motorola have already started rolling out the update to their smart-phones. HTC has also started doing the same for its HTC 10 brand of smart-phones. Huawei is slated to do the same in the first quarter of 2017.

The data also reveals that Android 4.4 or Kitkat enjoys a share of 24 percent across all active Android devices. Android Lollipop and its combined versions (5.0 and 5.1) run on as many as 34 percent of Android devices.

Even the outdated Android 4.1 or Jellybean operating system is still being used by 12.8 percent of Android users. Android 4.0 or Ice cream Sandwich has a share of 1.2 percent whereas Android 2.3 or Gingerbread has a share of 1.2 percent across Android devices around the world. Froyo or Android 2.2 registered a share of only 0.1 percent worldwide.

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