The adoption of Android Lollipop is fast gaining traction as the latest monthly chart update by Google reveals that the operating system is now installed on 18.1 percent of Android-powered devices.
The chart sheds light on the distribution figures for the various builds for the Android platform. The monthly chart aims to give developers insight into the pattern of adoption so that they can offer relevant support and "prioritize efforts."
The monthly data is garnered on the basis of the number of people who visit the Google Play Store during a seven-day period, which ended on Aug. 3. Versions with 0.1 percent distribution are no longer taken into account and are not reflected in the chart.
"This data reflects devices running the latest Google Play Store app, which is compatible with Android 2.2 and higher. Each snapshot of data represents all the devices that visited the Google Play Store in the prior 7 days," stated the Android developers.
As of Monday, Aug. 3, 18.1 percent of Android devices were running on Lollipop, of which Android 5.0 Lollipop accounted for 15.5 percent. By comparison, only 2.1 percent of the devices were running Android 5.1 Lollipop. Nevertheless, the adoption of Lollipop has seen an increase of 5.7 percent when taking into consideration the previous month.
The most used Android OS is Android 4.4 KitKat, claiming 39.3 percent of the pie. KitKat adoption saw a marginal increase of 0.1 percentage from last month.
Jelly Bean is the next widely used OS with 33.6 percent of the share: 13 percent, 15.9 percent, and 4.7 percent of devices are still on Android 4.1.x, Android 4.2.x, and Android 4.3 Jelly Bean, respectively.
The older Ice Cream Sandwich (versions 4.0.3 to 4.0.4) and Gingerbread (versions 2.3.3 to 2.3.7) are languishing at 4.1 percent and 4.6 percent, respectively. The almost forgotten Froyo, which is five years old, is still around and accounts for 0.3 percent of the devices.
By September, Android Lollipop will likely see a distribution increase, eating into KitKat's share, as more devices preloaded with Android 5.1 make their way to consumers.
