KitKat Running On 40%, Lollipop on Less Than 2% of Android Devices

By Kamal Nayan - 02 Feb '15 23:26PM

After 15 months, Google's mobile operating system KitKat is running on around 40 percent of Android devices. However, Android Lollipop, launched three months ago, runs on only 1.6 percent of devices.

Google updated its official version-by-version usage chart, breaking down what share of Android market each release has. Android Gingerbread still runs on 7.4 percent of devices, and the Android 4.0, also knowns as Ice Cream Sandwich, runs on 6.4 percent of devices.

Jellybean (Android 4.1/4.2/4.3) accounted of nearly 44 percent of devices.

The stats, for Google are certainly encouraging, but it's painfully slow compared to the adoption rate for Apple's iOS 8 which is on nearly 70 percent of iOS devices.

"The slow pace of updates means that users stuck on older versions of Android are being left vulnerable to malware and data theft as a result of bugs in the code not being patched. It also forces app developers to support a myriad of what are essentially obsolete versions of Android while simultaneously being unable to fully take advantage of the new Android APIs in their apps," ZD Net noted.

Google has distributed the essential apps like Gmail, Google Maps, Google Wallet through Google Play, which means users of older operating system still get the updated essential apps.