At last night’s Google Nexus event, Google CEO Sundar Pichai announced that Android now has more than 1.4-billion active users. That’s 400-million up from the one-billion it had at the same time last year.
Speaking at the event, Pichai said “The scale at which everything is working is pretty breath taking to see”
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Pichai also highlighted the growth of Android in developing markets like Indonesia and Vietman. The number of Android users in those two countries has doubled in a year, he said.
Pichai suggested that increasingly affordable Android devices and the launch of Android One are at the heart of the numbers doubling in emerging markets.
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Pichai did not go into details about which version of Android is now most popular. In results ending 3 August 2015, there was a 5.7 % increase in Lollipop adoption. The numbers reflected that old versions of Android remain popular with users. Android 4.4 KitKat, for instance is installed on 39.3% of Android devices. It is showing no signs of slowing down, increasing 0.1% from last month’s 39.2%.
Jelly Bean declined from 37.4% to 33.6%. Ice Cream Sandwich is at 4.1% while Gingerbread (Android 2.3) move down to 4.6% from 5.6%. Froyo (Android 2.2,) remains stubborn, staying at 0.3 %.
Android is not the first Google service to hit the one billion mark. At Google I/O earlier this year the company announced that YouTube and Chrome had both reached the one billion mark.
Pichai made it clear that Google is making plans to increase the active user numbers for Android.
Read more: Google is targeting the next billion (and Microsoft) with Android One
Android Marshmallow, the updated operating system, is scheduled to roll out to the first batch of phones in the coming week. Android M has some nifty features like Google Now on tap, new permission system, smart battery saving mode, and built-in fingerprint scanner support.
Android adoption has always been slow, Google will hope that it is not the case this time around so that it can, like Apple, boasts about its adoption numbers after release.
