If you are an Android smartphone user, you are one of the 1.4 billion users who are currently active on the platform around the world. During the grand unveiling of the all-new Nexus 6P and Nexus 5X on Tuesday, Google CEO Sundar Pichai revealed the impressive milestone for the company's dominant mobile OS. By reaching the 1.4-billion mark for active Android smartphones around the world, Google has managed to continue its dominance over other platforms, iOS and Windows Phone mainly, by a vast margin.
Google's new milestone is quite an achievement as the company recorded its first billion during the I/O keynote in June 2014. According to Pichai, majority of the 400 million active users added ever since are coming from emerging markets such as Vietnam and Indonesia, CNET reports.
"These are people adopting a smartphone for the first time," Pichai said. "We try to push the state of the art and the state of computing."
Putting these numbers on a wider perspective, Google's Android platform is used by more than 19% of the world population, which currently stands at 7.3 billion, as per US Census Bureau records.
Despite acquiring a significant user base, Android falls short of powering all the phones by the latest software. On that front, Apple takes lead by powering nearly 52% iDevices with the latest iOS 9 software, according to Andreessen Horowitz partner Benedict Evans estimation. It's worth noting that the iOS 9 rollout began two weeks ago. As for Google's OS, only 20% of the devices are running the latest Lollipop OS, which is shy of the 300-million mark.
Active Google Android devices running Lollipop: ~300m. Active iOS devices running iOS9: 350-400m
— Benedict Evans (@BenedictEvans) September 30, 2015
Separately, Pichai also revealed that 10,000 companies have adopted Google's Android for Work, which focuses on delivering secure and manageable Android experience for enterprise businesses.
