The latest version of Google’s mobile operating system, Android Lollipop, now runs on 1.6 percent of all Android smartphones. Google just posted the new information on its Android Developer Dashboard.
This is the first time information regarding the usage of Android Lollipop in Android ecosystem has gone live. A version of Android must run on at least 0.1 percent of all Android devices for that to show up on Android Developer Dashboard. Lollipop didn’t have its place in there last month. But now that it has 1.6 percent share on all Android phones, it now appears on the dashboard.
The growth shows that careers and operators are really pushing to update various Android devices to the latest version. The adoption rate is slow, but it’s steady and somewhat faster than most other Android versions.
Motorola is the prominent smartphone manufacturer being the first company outside of Google Nexus arena to push Lollipop update to its smartphones. The company has delivered the latest version of Android to both its flagship phone Moto X and budget phone Moto G. The first and second generation of the phones both have gotten Android Lollipop over the past few weeks.
Whenever a new version of Android is launched, carriers and manufacturers go through rigorous testing to ensure it meets their requirements and supports all the feature of their smartphones before rolling it out to users. The roll-out itself takes place by users in different regions receiving the update at different times. This is typical why carrier smartphones do not get Android updates as soon as Google’s Nexus devices and Google Play Edition smartphones do.
As of now, the latest version of Android is 5.0.2 Lollipop. The most popular version of Android so far in terms of usage is Jelly Bean . It runs on 44.5 percent of all Android smartphones today despite being a two year old release. The most recent version, Android KitKat, only runs on 39.7 percent devices.
Google did the math by recording data of all Android devices that accessed its app market, Google Play store, between Jan. 27 and Feb. 2.
