Three months in, Android Lollipop finally grabs 1.6% adoption

Google today updated its Platform Versions page for Android, and it looks like the latest version has finally shown up. Android 5.0 Lollipop has grabbed its first percent of the adoption pie, cutting into the growth of Android 4.4 KitKat, the only other version to gain adoption share this month.

The “milestone,” if you will, comes three months after Google debuted its Nexus 9, the first device to sport Android 5.0. Until now, Lollipop wasn’t showing up because its usage was negligible — Google says “Any versions with less than 0.1% distribution are not shown.” KitKat meanwhile grabbed less than 1 percentage point, which wasn’t enough for it to crack the 40 percent mark: it settled at 39.7 percent.

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More specifically, here are the changes between January and February:

• Android 5.0 Lollipop: Up 1.6 points to 1.6 percent
• Android 4.4 KitKat: Up 0.6 points to 39.7 percent
• Android 4.1/4.2/4.3 Jelly Bean: Down 1.5 points to 44.5 percent
• Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich: Down 0.3 points to 6.4 percent
• Android 2.3 Gingerbread: Down 0.4 points to 7.4 percent
• Android 2.2 Froyo: Unchanged at 0.4 percent

For the sake of comparison, here’s the Android adoption chart for January:

As with any updates using this tool, we have to point out that the data is gathered from the Google Play Store app, which requires Android 2.2 and above. This means devices running older versions are not included, nor are devices that don’t have Google Play installed (such as Amazon’s Fire line).

Given the lukewarm popularity of the Nexus line, and how slowly Android device manufacturers push out updates, we’re not really surprised at Lollipop’s slow start. That said, it is even slower than previous debuts, and right now at least it appears Android 5.0 won’t see significant adoption for quite some time.

To recap, we currently have Jelly Bean in first, KitKat in second, Gingerbread in third, ICS in fourth, Lollipop in fifth, and Froyo in sixth. KitKat is currently closer to overtaking Jelly Bean than Lollipop is to passing Gingerbread, as unfortunate as that is. New devices that will be announced at Mobile World Conference next month may help change that.