In the past, the Google team used to publish information on the spread of the various versions of Android, perhaps using “pie charts” and this allowed us to realize with a simple glance how popular the various releases of the operating system of the Mountain View giant were.
In recent times the Google team has become a little more reluctant to share this information and, therefore, to realize how the update campaign of the many Android smartphones available on the market is proceeding, it is necessary to rely on third-party sources, such as Uptodown, an Android app store with over 130 million monthly active users globally.
The most popular Android versions according to Uptodown
According to data from this app store, the most popular version of Google’s OS is Android 11 (with 29.5% market share), followed by Android 10 (with 25.2% market share) and Android 9 (with 11.5% market share).
In fourth place is Android 8.1 (with 11% market share) while to find Android 12 you have to get up to the fifth position (its market share is equal to 2.6%).
It should be noted that the data released by Uptodown concern the devices that access this app store and, therefore, are not representative of what is the real situation at a global level (they only provide an indication).
In any case, about six months after the release of Android 12, it is reasonable to expect a slightly higher diffusion of this version of the operating system and this especially if we think of the efforts supported by the Mountain View giant to speed up the update procedure of the devices already existing on the market and “oblige” mobile manufacturers not to neglect the updates.
The most popular manufacturers and browsers for Uptodown
In addition to the ranking of the most used Android versions on its platform, Uptodown has also published rankings related to the most popular manufacturers and browsers.
As for the manufacturers, at the helm, we find Samsung (31.62%), followed at a distance by Xiaomi (16.31%), Huawei (11.07%), and OPPO (5.17%) and Vivo (4.35%).
The ranking of browsers, finally, is literally dominated by Google Chrome, which can boast a market share of 83.6%.
In essence, the data released by Uptodown seem to confirm what had already emerged even from the “official” ones: the process of spreading Android 12 fails to take flight while Samsung and Google Chrome dominate respectively in the categories of mobile manufacturers and the most popular browsers.