The latest flavor of Google's mobile operating system, Android 6.0 Marshmallow, was released way back in October 2015. Despite its significant upgrades and features when compared to its predecessors, the latest figures show that Android Marshmallow only accounts for a tiny fraction of Android users.

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On the other hand, some analysts are predicting that the figure will increase in the coming months as device manufacturers start to integrate Android Marshmallow into their devices out of the box. This will greatly improve Marshmallow's traction as users will not be required to download or upgrade their devices to take advantage of its features.

In a statistics recently released by Google's Android Development Dashboard, Android Marshmallow accounts for 1.2 percent of devices in the Android market. While this figure is relatively small, the group is noticing an improvement of 0.7 percent in the previous month.

Many tech experts believe that the slow adoption of users to the latest Android version can be pointed to the cumbersome and sometimes frustrating process of upgrading a device. Network providers and smartphone manufacturers have to test each version of the operating system before they are rolled out to consumers.

The test phase can sometimes last for several months, which is a long wait for consumers to get their hands into official updates. This long and arduous process also affects content provider and developers who might design their product on a different version of Android, only to be surprised when a newer version of the operating system surfaces, according to CNet.

Only a handful of smartphone manufacturers have adopted the Marshmallow operating system. Android 6.0 Marshmallow comes preinstalled on Google's flagship devices Nexus 6P and Nexus 5X. The rest of the Nexus family of devices received the update late in October 2015.

LG is one of the first smartphone providers to offer Android Marshmallow on some of its devices. The South Korean tech giant Samsung also announced that it will roll out Marshmallow updates within the first quarter of the year, this move could help boost the popularity of the operating system.

TagsGoogle, google android, android marshmallow, Android 6.0, Android 6.0 Marshmallow