Android is by far the number one operating system in the market. In the third quarter of 2016, more than 85 percent of mobile users use the Android operating system. However, due to the complex distribution scheme, not all Android users get to use the latest Nougat version from Google.
On the other hand, it would seem that Android Nougat reached a very important milestone this month. According to the Android Developers website, Nougat just reached around 4.5 percent of the global market. Adding the 7.1 version to the statistics, the overall market share is now nearly five percent.
This is a really huge deal for Google since at the moment, the previous Marshmallow version is still the most widely used Android OS. Nougat market shares jumped to nearly twice the total number of users from last March.
According to Google, this unprecedented increase is due to the fact that a number of new Android devices were introduced before the end of March. Also, all of these mobile devices now come pre-installed with version 7.0 of Android Nougat. In addition to new Android devices, phone makers like Samsung, Sony, and others have been releasing their own versions of the Nougat operating system.
Right now, older Android phones from Samsung like the Galaxy Note 5 have been enjoying the Android Nougat for almost a month now. Samsung has announced that it will be releasing updates for other Android phones within the next couple of months. In fact, the Samsung Galaxy A3, A5, and A7 updates were already scheduled for a late May release.
It could take a few more months before Nougat reaches the same market share as the Android Marshmallow. The truth is, it took Google more than a year to get to where the Marshmallow operating system is now.
Hopefully, Google will be able to find a way to circumvent the delays in releasing third-party Android updates. This is the main reason why iOS is still growing in market shares every year. The fact that the OS gets regular updates from Apple in a timely manner is what makes it really attractive to others.