Android 6.0 Marshmallow Now Running on 0.5 Percent Active Devices: Google

Google has updated its Google Play distribution data for the seven-day period ending December 7, revealing that the number of Android Marshmallow-based devices logging into the store are slowly rising, while devices running Android Lollipop have reached the 30 percent mark.

To recall, Marshmallow made its debut last month in Google's monthly Android distribution charts and stood at 0.3 percent. Google recently started pushing the first major upgrade since Android 6.0 Marshmallow release to its Nexus range of the devices.

Sharing the distribution data of different versions of Android, Google reported that Android Lollipop has a total share of around 29.5 percent of active Android devices (with Android 5.0 Lollipop running on 16.3 percent of device and Android 5.1 at 13.2 percent) that check into Google Play compared to the 25.6 percent reported at the beginning of November - an increase of 3.9 percent in roughly a month.

According to the latest data released on the Android Developers' webpage, Android 4.4.x KitKat version is going down steadily in charts and now powers 36.6 percent devices compared to 37.8 percent last month - a decrease of 1.2 percent.

The latest Android distribution data also shows that Android Jelly Bean has a combined share of 26.9 percent - falling 2.1 percent from November's 29 percent. Android 4.1.x is seen on 10 percent devices (down from 11 percent), Android 4.2.x on 13 percent (down from 13.9 percent), and Android 4.3 on 3.9 percent devices (down from 4.1 percent).

Android 4.0.x or Ice Cream Sandwich, in Google's latest numbers, registered a share of 2.9 percent, down 0.4 percent from November. Android Gingerbread (v2.3.3-2.3.7) and Android 2.2 Froyo's device distribution shares are 3.4 percent (down 0.4 percent) and 0.2 percent (at the same number) respectively in the latest charts.

The OpenGL version distribution across active Android devices, on the other hand, saw OpenGL 2.0 dominating at 55 percent (from 56.6 percent last month), and OpenGL version 3.0 steadily rising to 38.8 percent (38.2 percent last month).