Google released the latest Android distribution numbers for August 2018, and the newest figures show that at this point, only a very small percentage of devices are likely running the latest version of the operating system, Android 9 Pie. In fact, this version of the Android OS was not included in the latest Android distribution numbers even though Google already released Android Pie to users in early August. It is likely that less than 0.1-percent of smartphones currently run Android Pie, which is the minimum market share that Google has to measure before the version appears in its distribution reports. However, it is likely that the percentage of smartphones running Android Pie will increase as smartphone manufacturers roll out the software upgrade to more devices within the next few months. For example, handsets from Sony, HMD Global, OnePlus, OPPO, Vivo, and Xiaomi that were part of the Android Beta program will get the stable version of Android Pie by the end of fall, and one handset, the Nokia 7 Plus, is already scheduled to receive Android 9 in September.
Meanwhile, the percentage of devices running Android Oreo went up from 12.1-percent in July to 14.6-percent in August. More specifically, 3.2-percent currently run Android 8.1 Oreo, while 11.4-percent now have Android 8.0 Oreo. The continued distribution of software packages that upgraded the operating system of devices to Android Oreo likely caused the increase in market share of Android Oreo. On the other hand, the most widely used version of the operating system is still Android Nougat, and it managed to maintain its market share at 30.8-percent in August. While the proportion of devices with Android 7.0 Nougat decreased to 20.3-percent, the share of the ecosystem of Android 7.1 saw a slight increase to 10.5-percent.
Android Marshmallow, a version of Android OS that was released back in 2015, experienced a market share decrease of 0.8-percent and it is currently running on 22.7-percent of all active devices based on the latest figures. Other versions of the operating system also saw decreases in ecosystem share over the last few weeks. For example, the market share of Android Jelly Bean decreased by 0.4-percent, while Android Lollipop went down by 1.2-percent.