Only 2 percent of Android phones have the latest software; tablet stats likely worse

March 16, 2011 | by Andrew Kameka

The latest Android Market stats have been released to remind users that their phones are out-of-date. The majority of Android phone are reasonably capable and in-line with major features released from Google. However, the Google Android charts highlight that the latest software version is available to only a small group of Android phones and tablets.

The Android distribution chart, which is based on the OS versions of smartphones and tablets accessing the Android Market in the past two weeks, reveals that 1 percent of users are running Android 2.3.3. When combined with the 0.7 users still on Android 2.3, that’s less than 2 percent of Android phones powered by Gingerbread. Considering that a large number of those phones likely use custom ROM’s, most notably CyanogenMod 7, it’s a rather disappointing reminder that most phones have yet to be updated.

The prime benefits of Gingerbread (Android 2.3) are incremental or hardware dependent – slightly better battery life or NFC support – so it’s not too much of a blow for that 61.3 percent of devices use Froyo (Android 2.2).

On the tablet side, Honeycomb Android 3.0 is used by 0.2 percent of visitors to the Android Market. The Motorola XOOM is currently the only Android device that supports Honeycomb in an official capacity, though some have chosen to root the Nook Color and run Honeycomb in a limited capacity. The majority of Android tablets are either like the Galaxy Tab, running Android 2.2, or not officially supporting version 3.0. We should see more Honeycomb tablets soon; maybe companies like Samsung and LG will even provide some solid release dates at CTIA next week.

Android Stats March 2011

[Android Developer] via IntoMobile

Android, Android 3.0, Android developer, android market, android os, Android stats, commentary, Froyo, honeycomb, statistics, stats

9 Comments

@burnayev says:

March 16, 2011 at 3:53 pm

There's nothing revolutionary in Android 2.3. I expect that most manufacturers will skip it in favor of a post-Honeycomb version. That one will be truly interesting as it'll bring all the Honeycomb goodness to the phones. It makes a lot of sense to focus R&D resources on 2.4 or 3.1 instead of Gingerbread. Borys Burnayev actioncomplete.com GTD for Android and Web My recent post Minor Release of ActionComplete Brings More Task Viewing Options- Adds More Languages
Stewart says:

March 16, 2011 at 3:53 pm

With the new market stats added to the developers console this week, developers see something entirely different. This shows the distribution of what devices apps are actually installed on which would seem to indicate that people with lower os versions are actually installing more apps versus just the devices that are capable of market access. http://i.imgur.com/wr9H1.png
Stewart says:

March 16, 2011 at 3:54 pm

Please note that the particular application in that screenshot is only available for 1.6 and higher.
Phil says:

March 16, 2011 at 4:36 pm

That looks pretty good to me. As long as you target 2.1, you'll be supporting just about everyone. And 2.1 is really not that old.
Storm14k says:

March 16, 2011 at 5:03 pm

I believe Google has told the OEM's too hold off on using 2.3 so I'm not surprised. I think there was a direction change in dealing with dual cores and merging the tablet branch.
jithu says:

March 16, 2011 at 9:54 pm

Splly Samsung is not releasing update versions to old promised handsets in india, I still have 2.1 with galaxy 3, they told that they will support 2.2 and it is not yet released
Nick@TopAndroidApps says:

March 17, 2011 at 1:15 pm

Not really missing out on much at the moment. My recent post AutoKiller Memory Optimizer
Nathan@AndroidUK says:

March 19, 2011 at 12:45 pm

I'm glad to see Froyo being rolled out to a lot of devices; it's Dalvik JIT compiler is, for me, the best thing about any Android update in a long long time. Hopefully the pre-2.1 handsets will start to disappear soon as people's contracts come up for renewal with devices originally running 1.5/1.6.
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