Android Nougat sees big gains, Lollipop still tops though

Google’s Android platform isn’t renowned for its fast updates, with Nexus/Pixel devices usually being the only ones to get updates at the pace Mountain View intends.

The latest version, Nougat, has taken its sweet time to roll out to many devices, but Google’s latest stats show that it’s making headway in any event.

The firm’s stats for the week ending 3 April show that Nougat (7.0 and 7.1) now account for 4.9% of all polled users. By comparison, the week ending 6 March showed that the latest release accounted for 2.8% of users.

Still, Android Lollipop is sitting at the top of the confectionery pile (5.0 and 5.1), with 32% of all Android devices still running the update. This is half a percent down compared to the week ending 6 March.

In second place, we’ve got Marshmallow at 31.2%, while KitKat is still pretty strong at 20%.

As for other notable Android releases, Jelly Bean accounted for 10.1% of all Android devices.

Nougat’s large increase can be attributed to many Android manufacturers actually pushing out the release to their higher end devices. Additionally, many new smartphones will ship with Nougat out of the box.