Category: Apps

Google has now released the distribution numbers for the various versions of its mobile operating system.

The figures for Google’s platform distribution over Android devices have now been released and they have shown that the most recent version of the operating system, Lollipop, has now been installed on 18.1 percent of all of the active mobile devices powered by that OS, worldwide.

Google collects its operating system distribution data by tracking the versions that visit the Play Store.

To do this, it collects the data about the version of the Android devices that visit the Google Play Store the most frequently throughout a testing period that runs for 7 consecutive days at the end of each month. It is estimated that 12.4 percent of the mobile devices powered by the operating system were a part of the data collection process during the last testing period. This is considered to be an accurate enough sample to understand the overall distribution of the various Android operating system generations.

The previous release of this data from Google showed that only 0.8 percent of Android devices were using Lollipop.

Clearly, there has been a considerable growth since that time. That said, that figure was specific to the mobile devices running on Android Lollipop version 5.1. There was another 11.6 percent of the smartphones and tablets that were running on the Lollipop 5.0 version. During the current figures, Android versions 4.0.3 through 4.0.4 represented a total of 4.1 percent of the smartphones and tablets. That was a decline from the period before, when it had been recorded to be 5.1 percent.

Ice Cream Sandwich also experienced a drop, having fallen from 5.1 percent in the previous numbers, to 4.1 percent in the current ones.

Both Gingerbread version 2.3 and Froyo version 2.2 were determined to have very small figures, but are still continuing to cling to existence.

It is clear that KitKat and Lollipop are continuing to hold the majority among Android devices, but that there are still quite a few devices out there from previous years that are still operating on the operating systems from their time.

While the market in the country is currently about half that of the United States, its growth rate is tremendous.

There is no doubt that mobile gaming is huge in China, despite the fact that it represents only a fraction of its complete video games market, and the fact that it is only about half of the size of the American market.

What makes the difference is the very rapid growth rate that the Chinese mobile games market is experiencing.

Mobile gaming is far lower, per capita, in the Chinese market than in the U.S. but the potential is only just starting to be tapped and the gap is about to close exceptionally rapidly. Currently, it is estimate that the market there is at around $9.7 billion (60 billion yuan). It has been consoles and, to a much greater extent, PC games that have been leading the way in terms of revenue in the country. However, the prediction now is that when compared to mobile devices, PC games may be about to lose their top position. This doesn’t necessarily mean that PC has no future, but it instead means that there is a great deal more room to grow in mobile.

Mobile gaming is accessible to a far larger number of people that haven’t tapped into it yet, in China.

The lead held by PC games remains a very sizeable one, but the situation has shown that growth is starting to slow, simply because it is starting to reach a level of saturation. Those who have PCs and who will use them for gaming are already doing so, to a large extent. What makes the mobile games environment have such potential to take the lead is that there are far more smartphone users than computer owners in the country, and they are now starting to get into these apps with a vengeance.

The growth in mobile gaming has been an amazing 400 percent, from having been 2.5 billion yuan a couple of years ago, to 125.2 billion yuan, last year. With an estimated three times more smartphone and tablet based gamers than there are on PCs, that shows that there is still quite a distance for mobile to go before it has reached its maturity.