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The latest version of Android is running on a tiny percentage of phones

Sundar Pichai Google
Google CEO Sundar Pichai. AP

Only 7.5% of customers are running Marshmallow, the latest version of Google's Android mobile operating system, The Verge reports.

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Lollipop, which was released in 2014, is still used on 35.6% of Android phones. And Gingerbread, the operating system that came out in 2010, is still used by 2.2% of Android phones.

One of the problems for Android developers is the so-called "fragmentation" of the operating system as customers are split between different devices and updates.

This can make it hard for developers to ensure their apps are fully compatible across devices and operating systems — although Google takes steps to mitigate this.

2015 open signal android fragmentation
A chart demonstrating the fragmentation between different kinds of Android handsets on the market. OpenSignal

The low number of people using Marshmallow is a big contrast to the amount of users who upgrade to the latest versions of Apple's iOS. Apple publicly displays the percentage of iPhone users who run the latest version of iOS — a whopping 84% of customers are running iOS 9.

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