Android Marshmallow Now Running on 4.6 Percent of Active Devices: Google

According to the latest Google Play distribution data for the seven-day period ending April 4, the number of Android Marshmallow-based devices logging into the store is steadily rising, while the share of Android Lollipop and Android KitKat powered devices is dropping gradually.

The latest data reveals that Android Marshmallow has a share of around 4.6 percent of active Android devices, which is exactly twice the number from last month. To recall, Android Marshmallow in March was running on 2.3 percent active Android devices.

Marshmallow-powered devices have definitely increased in recent months. To compare, Android 6.0 Marshmallow finally made it to 1 percent of active devices in February, five months after its release to Nexus devices.

The latest data reveals that Android Lollipop has a total share of around 35.8 percent of active Android devices (with Android 5.0 Lollipop running on 16.4 percent of devices and Android 5.1 version at 19.4 percent) that check into Google Play compared to 36.1 percent reported at the beginning of March - a minor decrease of 0.3 percent in roughly a month. The Android Developers' webpage shows that Android KitKat version is going down steadily on the charts and now powers 33.4 percent devices compared to 34.3 percent last month - a decrease of 0.9 percent.

Android Jelly Bean has a combined share of 21.3 percent - falling 1 percent from March's 22.3 percent. Android 4.0.x or Ice Cream Sandwich, in Google's latest numbers, registered a share of 2.2 percent, down 0.1 percent from last month. Android Gingerbread (v2.3.3-2.3.7) and Android 2.2 Froyo's device distribution shares are 2.6 percent (same as last month) and 0.1 percent (same as last month) respectively in the charts.

The latest OpenGL version distribution numbers, on the other hand, saw OpenGL 2.0 dominating at 50.9 percent, and OpenGL version 3.0 steadily rising to 40.7 percent.