Android 11 is used on a quarter of smartphones, but it’s not the most popular version
Google used to publish Android distribution data on a monthly basis prior to 2018, but the company has only released the numbers once a year since. Google has finally released the latest data for 2021, which shows which version of Android is used the most.
Android 11 may have seen a record adoption rate after its release last year, but it is still not the most used version. The data shared by Google does not currently include Android 12, it will still have to wait before knowing if the new version released a little over a month ago has been successful has been adopted quickly.
According to the report published in Android Studio, Android 11 R is used on 24.3% of total active Android devices, nearly a quarter of them. However, it is not the most popular version of Android. Indeed, she is a little behind Android 10, which takes first place with a 26.5% market share. It was quickly adopted by users, since only 10 months after its release, 400 million devices were already using it.
To read also : The whole history and timeline of Android
What are the most used versions of Android?
After Android 10 and Android 11, the most popular version is Android 9 Pie, with 18.2% market share. Introduced in 2018, it is still used by nearly a fifth of active Android devices worldwide. We then find Android 8.1 Oreo at 9.7% market share and Android 8.0 Oreo at 4.0%.
It is interesting to note that older versions of Android do not necessarily become the least used, since Android 7.1 Nougat is only present in 2.9% of devices, compared to 3.4% for Android 7.0 Nougat and same 5.1% for Android 6.0 Marshmallow. The latter, released over 6 years ago, is still surprisingly popular today.
Some of the newer devices may already install the new Android 12 update, including Google’s Pixel smartphones. For its part, Samsung has also started the deployment of Android 12 with One UI 4 on its 2021 Galaxy S21, but it will take wait until next year for other smartphones to be compatible. Other manufacturers are also expected to start rolling out the update to their high-end smartphones soon.
Source: 9to5Google