After nine months, Android 9 Pie is only on 10% of Android phones
Oreo is the most used Android OS
When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.Here’s how it works.
With each new version of Android,Googlebrings new and useful features to its phoneoperating system, but it seems no-one feels pressured to update their phones judging by new distribution stats released by Google.
According to the figures, the nine-month-old Android 9 Pie, Google’s latest operating system, is only on 10.4% of all Android phones – in comparison its predecessor, Android 8 Oreo, is on 28.3%.
In fact, Android 9 is on fewer devices than all Android versions newer than Android 4.4 KitKat, which came out in 2013, so people clearly aren’t in a hurry to upgrade their phones.
Most new phones, such as theSamsung Galaxy S10andHuawei P30, use the newer operating system, but people often wait on buying these high-end handsets for a while until they’re more affordable, which could explain why fewer handsets run Android 9, especially as older phones often take a while to be updated by their makers.
How does this compare to iOS?
The newestAppleOS, iOS 12, was released in September 2018 – and according to theApple supportwebsite, as of February 2019, 80% of iPhones and iPads run on the newer operating system, which is a wildly different figure from the 10% of Android phones which use its newest OS.
Despite Apple’s newest OS being used on a much bigger portion of its devices than Google’s newest Android version, that doesn’t necessarily mean iOS 12 is more popular among users than Android 9 – according tostatistics taken mid-way through 2018, Android phones make up 88% of the marketshare, compared to 11.9% for iOS, so in fact the number of phones using iOS 12 and Android 9 could be roughly even.
Why does no-one use Android 9?
Android phones don’t always notify users when a new upgrade is available, unlike iOS products, so many Android users may not know about, or feel the need to explore, OS upgrades – this could explain the lower uptake rates. Plus, as noted manufacturers aren’t always quick to bring updates to their handsets.
Get the best Black Friday deals direct to your inbox, plus news, reviews, and more.
Sign up to be the first to know about unmissable Black Friday deals on top tech, plus get all your favorite TechRadar content.
It’s also worth considering that the step up to Android 9 from Android 8 isn’t a huge one, with the biggest changes being an aesthetic change as well as adaptive brightness and battery use, which not all Android users might find useful or worth the time taken to upgrade.
However, judging by the fact that 0.3% of Android phones still run Android Gingerbread, from 2010, not all Android users feel the need to upgrade regularly at all, so perhaps the phone industry’s emphasis on yearly upgrades doesn’t necessarily reflect consumer demand for newer and better operating systems.
Tom Bedford was deputy phones editor on TechRadar until late 2022, having worked his way up from staff writer. Though he specialized in phones and tablets, he also took on other tech like electric scooters, smartwatches, fitness, mobile gaming and more. He is based in London, UK and now works for the entertainment site What To Watch.
He graduated in American Literature and Creative Writing from the University of East Anglia. Prior to working on TechRadar, he freelanced in tech, gaming and entertainment, and also spent many years working as a mixologist.
5 must-have Android apps
How to lock apps on a Google Pixel phone
After Arcane season 1 ended on a stunning cliff hanger, its creators say it was ‘always the plan’ for those characters to die in the season 2 premiere
