Google’s feeble control over Android update rollout has often been rebuked on stage by Apple to promote timely and widespread iOS updates year after year. The company has managed to save face this year by completely stopping the practice of sharing its latest Android distribution numbers each month.
It’s been over six months since the company officially revealed what percentage of users are using which version of Android. We are still waiting on Google to release the newest figures but an unusual source is here to address the elephant in the room. PornHub recently published its ‘Year in Review’ report (don’t go looking, it’s NSFW obviously) and given us the one statistic that we have been waiting for months now.
Among all the statistics included in the report, there’s a section that talks about devices PornHub viewers are using to surf the adult entertainment platform. And interestingly, it not only lists the Android and iOS breakdown for mobile users, but also shines a light on the Android distribution numbers.
PornHub reveals which version of Android is being used by how many users, among the ones visiting its website. But, we can expect the figure to be pretty accurate as Pornhub appears in the top 50 websites list in the global Alexa rankings. Also, it’s the first time I have seen Android 10 in an (un)official distribution chart.
In an official blog post, PornHub mentioned, “If we break the results down to the particular version of a mobile operating system being used, we find that Apple users tend to be more up-to-date than their Android counterparts.”
It further reiterated a fact that I believe most of us already know. A larger 71 percent of Apple visitors had already updated to iOS 13 (released in September 2019) whereas 48 percent of Android users are still on Android 9 Pie (released over a year ago). It is not the latest version of Android, and I know, you are eager to know what percentage of devices are running Android 10 (also released in September) right now.
Well, PornHub’s ‘Year in Review’ report for 2019 reveals that Android 10 (or Android Q) is used by a mere two percent of users visiting the website. It doesn’t come as a surprise that Android 10 has reached only 2% users in the previous 4 months. Phone makers are pushing ahead to deliver Android 10 to users but it looks like Project Treble hasn’t helped much in streamlining and speeding up the update process. I believe it’s going to be a long time before Google manages to bring down fragmentation in the Android ecosystem.
