Based on materials from android-softwares.com
The problem with Android Marshmallow is literally this: people are not getting it on their devices. According to the latest official statistics from Google, the latest major platform update has been installed on an unfortunate few devices.
Ten months after she first appeared officially, and nine months after she appeared in the distribution rankings. Somewhat depressing …
Beginning in mid 2012, Google Android Developer publishes monthly distribution of versions Android installed on devices. There is not enough data for October 2014 and July 2015 – with these exceptions we have monthly statistics for a period of about 4 years. Of course, Google is constantly updating the charts, so I had to dig deeper into the web archives and spend several hours to get a picture for each of the past 48 months that were available. It was difficult, but it was worth it: even the most modest forecasts were too optimistic.
It turns out that something is wrong with Android Marshmallow:
As you can see, 9 months after Google started citing Marshmallow data, the best result is… 13.3% of users. Staggeringly low, and our data support it. See for yourself:
- In the 9th month, Lollipop was installed on 23.5% of all devices (76.7% of the most popular version)
- On month 9, KitKat was installed on 20.9% of all devices (57.1% of the most popular version)
- In the 9th month, Jelly Bean was installed on 25% of all devices (88% of the most popular version)
A cursory tally tells us that after 9 months of existence, Marshmallow is down 73.9% in prevalence compared to the average of previous major updates.
So what's going on?
The big updates Android have become quite sequential: the next one appears in the last trimester of each year starting with Android KitKat. Given how consistent, at the same time, manufacturers have become in terms of the gap between releases of respective devices, it is reasonable to assume that the slow spread of Marshmallow is not due to the fact that they are still preparing to conquer the market. Quite frankly, with the exception of the Samsung Galaxy Note 7, most of the expected Android devices of the year are already on the market or coming soon.
Even if we assume that the company's upcoming launch Motorola of its Moto Z line will be successful alongside the Note 7, there is no reason to believe that this will seriously affect the spread of Marshmallow – after all, there are over a billion active devices on Android. And even if that happens, there are big doubts that Marshmallow's performance will sharply compare with previous versions.
So what's going on?
To be honest, we have no idea …
It may be that manufacturers have cooled down a bit in their desire to give their customers the latest OS versions. Or simply Marshmallow – an update that is technically too difficult to implement into your own proprietary software. Or maybe this is due to the widespread use of delayed purchases, which means that the overall number of installs Android is due to a lack of desire to update the smartphone.
Or finally, it could be an indication of how much better smartphones have gotten over the past few years. So much better that it gets harder and harder to justify a new purchase. After all, if your KitKat device is working fast and the camera is shooting it well, it's easy to imagine that it will be delayed. Maybe later the holidays will trigger a boom in sales when many of us decide it's time to upgrade?
Again, nothing definite can be said. One can only reason.
Join the reflections in the comments, dear readers. What do you think about the situation with the update Android, what, in your opinion, may be the reason? And how important is having the latest version to you?