Android Now Has 2.5 Billion Active Users

Android is a ludicrously popular operating system—but do you know how popular it has grown among users over the years?—At the just concluded Google event, held in mountain view, California, the tech company announced the milestone the operating system has grown to over 2.5 billion active Android devices around the world, according to Android director Stephanie Cuthbertson.

This is a big leap up from the last time that Google announced this kind of statistic. Back in 2014, Google revealed that Android had reached one billion active devices and In May 2017 at Google I/O, the company revealed that it had exceeded the 2 billion mark for active Android devices. That means there are now over 500 million more Android devices that have launched, and are still active, in the past two years or so.

Android was the company’s first platform to reach the 2 billion mark. For a while now, Google has pointed out that it has eight products with more than a billion users: Android, Chrome, Google Play, Gmail, Google Drive, Google Maps, Google Search, and YouTube. But Android remains way ahead of the pack. Those 2.5 billion devices were produced by more than 180 hardware manufacturers, and they’re not all smartphones. The number also encompasses just about any device with Google Assistant built in, including smart speakers, smart displays, and even KaiOS phones.

Google is still in a tricky position when it comes to updating devices to the current version of Android. According to Google’s own distribution report, there are still a lot of people using Android KitKat, Lollipop and Marshmallow. Android Oreo is catching up though and the number of people updating to Android Pie is increasing.

Google is now gearing up to launch Android Q later this year. It has confirmed that the Android Q beta 3 is readily available for almost two dozen smartphones, many of them from third-party OEMs.