Lollipop still taking hold as Marshmallow begins to climb in latest Android platform numbers

Google has released its latest figures for Android platform version distribution with no big surprises. Lollipop and Marshmallow continue to grow their presence as older versions decline in usage, with the biggest gains coming for Android 5.1.

Android 6.0, the most recent version of Google’s OS, has not yet cracked 1%, but is getting close at 0.7%. On the other hand, Android 5.1 and 5.0 also continue to increase with a 32.6% share of version distribution. KitKat still dominates with over 36%, but that number is dropping all the time.

The numbers are what we would expect as some of the most popular Android handsets like the Samsung Galaxy S6 have yet to receive the upgrade to Marshmallow, and newer devices still are not consistently launching with Android 6.0 out of the box. Expect the numbers to begin changing more dramatically as we move further into the first quarter of the year.