OpenSignal, a company that provides crowdsourced wireless coverage data, released its annual Android fragmentation report this week. As usual, it’s a fascinating look at the state of Google’s mobile operating system.
To compile the report, OpenSignal surveyed more than 682,000 devices, meaning this is one of the most comprehensive looks at the ecosystem.
Let’s get the obvious out of the way first. Since OpenSignal started publishing these reports, Android device fragmentation has increased, dramatically so in many cases. In 2013, 11,868 distinct devices were represented in OpenSignal’s annual report. In 2014, that number rose to 18,796. One year later, the number has reached an astounding 24,093.
Moreover, in the past two years more than 1000 new brands have entered the ecosystem. Samsung is still king, however, with its smartphones accounting for 37.8 per cent of all the 682,000 devices OpenSignal surveyed. If you’re curious about the most popular Samsung device, it’s the Galaxy S3.
Software fragmentation is slightly different story. Almost 40 per cent of Android users are on the same version of the operating system—KitKat, in this case. However, there are more Android devices on Gingerbread than there are on the latest version of the operating system, Android 5.1.
As with any report on Android fragmentation, OpenSignal also looked at how the operating system compares to iOS, and, well, as has been the case for a long time, the majority of iOS users are on the same version of Apple’s mobile operating system. In 2015, only 2 per cent of iOS users are on a version of iOS older than iOS 7. The vast majority, 85 per cent, are on the latest version.
Lastly, Open Signal created a map that shows the most popular Android brand in each country that it has data on, and, without much surprise, Samsung dominates the developed world, including Canada. (Speaking of maps, have you taken a look at our own effort to crowdsource wireless coverage in Canada?)
There you have it, the Android ecosystem in nutshell and on a couple of handsome graphics.
[source]Open Source[/source]
