Google's newest OS hits only five percent of devices

The latest version of Android - version 4.4, codenamed KitKat - is now installed on just over 5 percent of Android devices, Google's latest figures reveal.

KitKat was released in October last year, and has now been installed on around one in 20 Android smartphones and tablets, according to newly released data on the Google Developer Dashboard.

By comparison, Apple last month claimed that iOS 7 – released only a month before KitKat – was running on 85 percent of iOS devices. Apple, of course, controls both hardware and software, while Google is largely dependent on operators and handset manufacturers to push Android updates to users.

KitKat is now only the sixth most used version of Android. Jellybean, or Android 4.1, is the most used variant, installed on 34.4 percent of devices. Gingerbread, or Android 2.3 – which was released back in February 2011 – is still on three times as many active devices as KitKat.

Google releases the data to help app developers decide which versions of Android they should support with their apps.

This article originally appeared at pcpro.co.uk