Android 5.0 Lollipop adoption rate is so low it didn’t appear on Google’s distribution chart
- By Ryan Whitwam on January 9, 2015 at 12:01 pm
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Android 5.0 Lollipop has been out for almost two months now, but as you should know by this point, that doesn’t mean very many people are actually using it. Actually, according to Google’s new platform distribution numbers, even fewer people than expected are on the latest and greatest Mountain View has to offer. Lollipop didn’t even hit the 0.1% cutoff required to be represented in the data.
Once per month, Google aggregates data about the various Android devices that check into the Play Store. This data is turned into some nifty tables and graphs for the developer dashboard, which app makers can use to better target devices. The largest chunk of active Android devices this time is represented by Jelly Bean (all three versions collectively) at 46%, followed closely by KitKat at 39.1%. The oldest version still showing up in the data is Android 2.2 Froyo (0.4%), which is positively ancient by technology standards — it was released in May 2010.
The newest version of Android that runs on Google’s flagship devices is a smaller part of the Android ecosystem than a version released nearly five years ago. That’s certainly not ideal from Google’s perspective, but the data doesn’t lie. You have to give Google credit for providing this service for developers without any PR spin. By comparison, last year after about two months, KitKat was on 1.1% of devices, which still isn’t great, but it’s at least ten times more than Lollipop right now. So, what gives?
There are a few things going on in the data that might explain the absence of Android 5.0, not all of which are bad. First, we don’t know anything about the absolute number of devices out there. It’s possible there are more Lollipop phones and tablets right now than there were on KitKat this time last year — all we know is that they comprise less than 0.1% of the whole Android ecosystem.
That’s not to say Lollipop uptake has been great, though. The Nexus program really stumbled this year. The Nexus 6 is a great phone if you can find it, and you probably can’t. Even two months after the announcement, this device is out of stock constantly. Nexus phones have always been in high demand, but it’s clear Motorola and Google were not prepared for the rush this year. The usual influx of new software that usually hits the Play Store around the end of the year didn’t happen this time — it’s not a lot, but enough to show up in the data. There simply aren’t sufficient Nexus devices to go around, and the limited updates of unlocked phones and tablets aren’t going to compensate for that.
Interestingly, KitKat usage jumped in this month’s data. That’s likely an effect of people trading in their old phones for new ones over the holiday season. Most flagship phones are still waiting on their Lollipop update, so that’s not too surprising, but even budget phones are starting to ship with Android 4.4. This version is tuned to play nice with slower devices, which has led to a ton of high-quality inexpensive phones. Thankfully, cheap devices powered by the archaic Gingerbread version are in heavy decline in this data, probably because of KitKat’s better support for the budget end of the spectrum. This is a very good thing.
Slow adoption of Android is a fact of life, and things are still better now than they used to be. A slow start to Lollipop’s deployment isn’t the end of the world, and it doesn’t point to user discontent. Lollipop isn’t something people go out and buy, it’s delivered to them whenever an OTA is ready. Slow updates are sometimes cited as a potential downfall for Android, but year after year it keeps growing. The platform numbers are odd, but it’s not time to panic yet.
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