Android M, or Android 6.0 Marshmallow, was released late last year. Distribution of the update to various Android smartphones crawled in the early part of 2016, but now in May, there are signs that Marshmallow is finally making good progress.

Slow Start

For people in Android land, the release of a new major version of Google's mobile operating system always brings a mix of anticipation and angst: You really want the new Android but in most cases if you're not buying a brand new flagship phone, know it will probably take a long time actually make it to your smartphone.

And in the worst cases, it just never will.

May Figures

But now in May, according to the updated Android Developers dashboard for this month, Android 6.0 Marshmallow is actually starting to make up a decent proportion of the overall Android ecosystem.

Using data gathered from the Google Play Store app, Google can gauge what percentage of Android smartphones are running which version of Android -- through it doesn't count anything older than Android 2.2, since older operating system versions than Froyo can't even run the new Play Store app.

According to data collected the week ending April and beginning May of 2016, Android 6.0 Marshmallow is now running on 7.5 percent of all Android devices.

Accelerating M Adoption

If 7.5 percent doesn't sound impressive (Android will never be as uniform as iOS, even though Google tried once), just consider the recent uptick in adoption of Android M as a sign of acceleration.

Android M distribution, for example, is proportionately quite higher than April, when Android M first showed any significant change in distribution with a 4.6 percent figure. April's distribution percentage itself was double compared to Android M in March.

Android M's adoption still doesn't compare with Android Lollipop (Android 5.0 and Android 5.1), which altogether still accounts for over 35 percent of Android devices.

The next most ubiquitous version of Android is 2014's Android 4.4 KitKat, which accounts for 32.5 percent of Android smartphones out there now.

Related