For the first time since its debut last year, Android 6.0 Marshmallow now boasts of double-digit market share according to the latest platform data from Google.
2, 3 and 4-year-old versions of Android are still the most popular
Android Marshmallow saw its market share grow to stand at 10.1% up from 7.5% in May 2016. Marshmallow’s growth has come at the expense of older Android versions. Two-year-old Android 5.x Lollipop saw its market share dip marginally to 35.4% down from 35.6% last month. Android Jelly Bean saw its market share drop from 20.1% to 18.9% while Ice Cream Sandwich and Gingerbread dropped to negligible territory with 1.9% and 2% market share respectively.
Marshmallow’s growth is mainly attributed to it running straight out of the box on newer devices while older ones which have been getting the update in recent weeks also help in shoring up the numbers.
Android Marshmallow follows a similar curve to what we’ve seen before: the latest version of Android takes over a year to gain any significant market share. This spells doom for upcoming Android N which is likely to take its sweet time before reaching a significant portion of the over 1.5 billion devices running Google’s mobile operating system.
